Outrage over Toblerone changes

THIS is a disgrace. Toblerone manufacturers have changed the chocolate favourite, and people are, understandably, not happy.

IF YOU thought things were getting chaotic at the US election polls, brace yourself before heading to Toblerone’s Facebook page.

Makers of the popular triangular treat created outrage among fans in what we’re sure they were hoping would go under the radar as a small, insignificant change.

But size matters.

The makers of Toblerone Swiss chocolate have decided to quietly cut the size of the chocolate bar by widening the spaces in some of its iconic triangle-array bars.

The change shaves off about 10 per cent of the product, which will retail at the same price.

Toblerone-lovers worldwide are outraged, and have hardly been satisfied by assurances from manufacturer Mondelez International that it won’t affect all its products, mainly just those sold in Britain.

The change has led to a widespread social media revolt, with fans flooding the brand’s Facebook pages with complaints, and of course expressing their distaste through a healthy range of memes.

Mondelez has tried to explain the “necessary” change as a response to the higher prices for ingredients.

Though it’s been a popular theory, the brand has tried to put to rest suggestions that Britain’s vote to leave the European Union was to blame.

But it comes as British food retailers have faced rising prices for imported goods due to the drop in the value of the pound since the June vote.

The tweak in Britain involves shrinking a 170 gram Toblerone sold by British discounters like Poundland to 150 grams, said Mondelez spokeswoman Heide Hauer. The price remains the same.

The signature 100 gram Toblerone bar and other vendors are not affected, Hauer said. But Toblerone also has trimmed its supersized 400 gram product — often sold in airports — to 360 grams globally, for the same recommended retail price, said Hauer.

Michael Payne, executive director of the International Association of Airport Duty Free Stores, told AP that duty free stores sell Toblerone in a variety of sizes, so he’s not sure how this change would affect sales.

#toblerone #brexit I told you that leaving the EU would have serious consequences. Now I' m really upset. pic.twitter.com/w81cWYpNl4

— Mark Greenwood (@markcjgreenwood) November 8, 2016

If Trump wins on the day #Toblerone as we know it died, it would be a double serving of tragedy.

— Louis Thomas (@Louis_R_Thomas) November 8, 2016

Hauer from Mondelez cited “a multitude” of factors like rising commodity prices, a regular review of pricing and the fallout from a weakening of the Swiss franc in early 2015 that caused a spike in production costs.

The smaller products had started to be switched onto British shelves from September, but went largely unnoticed.

Mondelez foreshadowed the backlash on its Facebook page in a post on October 15, where it explained the company was facing higher costs for “numerous ingredients”.

“We carry these costs for as long as possible, but to ensure Toblerone remains on-shelf, is affordable and retains the triangular shape, we have had to reduce the weight of just two of our bars in the UK, from the wider range of available Toblerone products,” it said.

In the grocery and confectionary industries, the phenomenon of shrinking products is nicknamed “shrinkflation”, and it’s all about shrinking products while keeping prices stable.

It’s the shrinking Killer Python all over again.

It’s something Australian consumers, and their tempers, are all too familiar with.

Allen’s faced the wrath of scorned sugar fiends in 2014 when it almost halved the size of its iconic Killer Pythons, and Cadbury has grown used to copping it over its ever-shrinking Dairy Milk blocks.

The trick has also been used to fool shoppers with everyday products like toilet paper, and a similar scam with laundry liquids led to the biggest ever penalty obtained by the ACCC, with Woolworths forced to pay $9 million for its role in a deal that duped Aussie customers into paying more for detergent.

— with AP