Cadbury loses more than $12 million in Creme Egg sales

FIRST Cadbury tinkered with the size of its blocks. Then it changed the recipe for Creme Eggs. Now it seems it’s paying the price.

IT SEEMS that Cadbury has learnt a very valuable lesson. Whatever you do, don’t mess with people’s chocolate.

Research by analysts IRI for business publication The Grocerfound the brand’s best-selling Easter lines lost more than $20 million in UK sales last year, narrowing its market share from 42 per cent to 40 per cent.

The report said that the Creme Egg was the biggest loser after Cadbury admitted it replaced the popular Dairy Milk egg shell with a “standard” cocoa mix.

At the time of the revelation, chocolate expert Angus Kennedy warned Cadbury could be “left with egg on their face”, adding: “Creme Eggs are a British favourite and consumers are quick to notice any change.”

And it would seem he was right. Creme Eggs went on to lose more than $12 million.

Cadbury Creme Egg chocolate sits in individual servings at the Bournville Cadbury factory in the UK.

Cadbury claimed the new recipe was about improving efficiency rather than saving money.

It said the chocolate was made from cocoa, milk and sugar, although the blend had “changed marginally”. The manufacturers also stated that the new eggs were taste-tested and said consumers were unable to tell any difference. Marketing manager Claire Low told The Grocer that despite the change, the fundamentals of Cadbury Creme Egg “remain exactly the same”.

But fans of the sweet treat, which was launched in 1971, disagreed, and argued the new shell was sweeter and had a more pasty texture.

One fan said online: “The chocolate tastes cheap, like chocolate liquors. I’m so disappointed — they’ve been my favourite treat for years.”

Another added: “That’s the final nail in the coffin. I loved Cadbury’s chocolate — now it tastes like sh*te.”

Someone even wrote a song about their emotional response to the new formula:

And another person wrote a poem:

The pain of the altered Creme Egg was very real for some.

Cadbury’s recipe modification also coincided with a drop in the number of eggs in a multi-pack from six to five. For many consumers it was the last straw, given earlier controversies over how Cadbury imposed stealth price rises by shrinking its bars and packs.

In response to the plummeting sales figures, a spokesman for Cadury’s parent company, Mondelez, said “Cadbury remains the number one treat at Easter. The Easter season changes every year depending on when Easter falls. It was two weeks shorter in 2015 than 2014 so it’s hard to compare like for like.

“This is why most of the big chocolate brands show a fall in revenue for 2015 against 2014.”

Other brands that have suffered a backlash after altering their recipe

New Coke.

In 1985 Coca-Cola decided to replace the original formula of its flagship soft drink. The company’s market share had been steadily losing ground to Pepsi and the company suspected that consumers preferred Pepsi’s sweeter taste. However, the American public’s reaction to the change was negative, and the new cola was deemed a major marketing failure. The subsequent reintroduction less than three months later of Coke’s original formula, rebranded as “Coca-Cola Classic”, resulted in a significant gain in sales. This led to speculation that the introduction of the New Coke formula was just a marketing ploy.

New Milo recipe in New Zealand

New Zealanders weren’t fans of Milo’s new recipe.

Last year Nestle decided to remove the vanilla flavour from the New Zealand recipe for Milo and, goodness, people were miffed. Fans of the product took to the Milo Facebook page to vent their frustration, with many claiming their kids were refusing to eat the new version. One disgruntled consumer started a ‘Change Milo back to the old recipe’ page, which currently has over 9,000 likes. The change also led to online sales of the “old recipe” Milo, with one person pricing a $9 tin of the original Milo for $20.

Nescafe tinkers with the formula of their Cafe Menu

Nestle’s Cafe Menu range.

Nestle also felt the wrath of Australian consumers last year when they changed the recipe for the Cafe Menu range. Annoyed coffee drinkers took to Nescafe’s Facebook page to vent their fury. “Sorry but this ‘new’ recipe for this once delicious coffee is just horrendous,” Tiffany Jackson posted. Suzie Gordon was particularly agitated that the new brew wasn’t strong enough, writing “THE COFFEE IS NOW NOT PERFECT — You changed it. I DRINK STRONG COFFEE.”

Consumers cheesed-off over altered Easy Mac recipe

Kraft realised the error of their ways and reverted back to the original Easy Mac recipe.

Kraft’s Easy Mac microwaved snack formula was quietly altered in August 2013, removing processed cheese and replacing it with flavoured cheese sauce powder. The move was branded an “epic fail” with peeved consumers saying it resembled “plastic” and “vomit”. Almost a year after the change, owner Mondelez reverted to the original recipe after plummeting sales threatened to delete the snack from the production line.

Originally published as Cadbury loses more than $12 million in Creme Egg sales