Poll: Who Shrunk My Chocolate Bar?
Chocolate eaters down under have noticed something strange is happening with their chocolate bars - they've shrunk. Mars Bars have downsized by 11% and Cadbury chocolate bars have gone from 250g to 200g (20% drop).
The one thing that hasn't dropped is price.
Nutritionists have praised the idea:
"It's a tremendous move," he said. "It's all about portion control and paying the same for less is not a bad thing. I think we can still enjoy it." - Dr Manny Noakes
Consumers aren't so impressed - particularly the stealth nature of the changes.
Are smaller chocolate bars a good idea?
More like this in Fast Food and Media Watch · Jun 8, 2009
17 Comments
Add Your Comment
ADVERTISING
New
- FROM DIET BLOG
- On-Off Fasting: Does It Work?
- 400 Calorie Fix
- 5 Factor World Diet
- Quick Giveaway: Powerhouse Weight Loss Game
- FORUM
- Low Carb Atkins Diet- Tips to Cut the Carbs.
- How Can I Gain a Healthy Weight and Keep it?
- How Do I Eat Healthy at University?
- Starving Myself and Exercising, But Not Losing an Ounce?
Categories
| Body Image Celebrities Diet Pills Diets Exercise |
Fast Food Funny Stuff Success Stories Teens and Kids Tips and Tools |
RSS Feed
Follow @DietBlog on Twitter
Generally in Japan the chocolate bars are much smaller and there is not as large of selection. Further, I have never seen a chocolate bar vending machine while there is a soda machine on every corner.
Last time my wife and I were in Hawaii we went to Walmart for inexpensive souviners. My wife was amazed at the variety, large volume and low price of things like chocolate and chips.
Consumers demand it and the producers abide.
ReplyOn the other hand, I was surprised at a vending machine selling chocolate bars when I saw it at first time. Since then, I thought chocolate must be something special to the people in the North America.
ReplyWhile, I don't eat mars bars or cadburys as i prefer the organic dark chocolate, I do have a problem with the supermarket shrink ray. The manufacturers concern isn't about your waistline it's about your wallet. Go ahead a sell single portion bars but sell them at a different price than the three portion bars.
ReplyPeople who want more will just buy two, those of us with self control will stop when we feel we ought to. It is a matter of personal lifestyle choice, not a distributer's portion choice. Fat people will stay fat, healthy people will stay heathly, and thin people will still be thin.
ReplyThis isn't true for most people. The majority will eat the whole candy bar, either mindlessly because it's there, or because they don't want to waste it. I think it should cost more and be smaller.
ReplyI disagree. My mother will buy 2 chocolate bars a month and will break them into small pieces and eat them only when she needs her "chocolate hit". She is mindfull of her eating. This may not aply to the majority of the population, but that is why the majority of our population is overweight/ obese. Having self control is rare these days but not impossible.
ReplyNever forget "self control" comes in many forms, not just concerning food.
ReplyHa, I like the "Weight Loss by Stealth" option. Just keep charging the same amount but give people less. Most people probably wouldn't even notice the difference in size and they'd be getting fewer calories without even trying.
Reply@Spectra
ReplyIf you're willing to give up your money for less product go right ahead. I have enough self control to not eat an entire bar (although I wouldn't want to eat a mars bar in the first place!) And if they offered smaller portioned bars for less money that would be better, like the ghirardelli single serving bars. That's the perfect amount of chocolate!
I don't think that's an option. The cost of materials to produce food is rising quickly. So you can pay more for the same size, or pay the same for smaller. I'd rather have the smaller. And I don't eat them either, but I realize most will eat the whole bar, smaller, bigger, medium.
ReplyWhere are the results of the poll??
ReplyOnce you vote you see the results.
ReplyInteresting. I've noticed the increase in price and decrease in size in a number of products.
ReplyIn the papers on the weekend, Cadbury put in full size ads explaining why they were making their chocolates smaller, but not changing the price. Their own way of helping the obesity crisis. :) Customers had been complaining about their stealth tactics.
Nestle put in their own full page ads saying how they weren't changing the size or the price of their chocolates. So, I think we are having a chocolate war in Australia between Cadbury and Nestle.
ReplyThis is not news.. it has been going on for years here in the US. Many years ago they used to sell spaghetti sauce in quart jars. A quart is 32 fluid ounces. Those "same size" jars have shrunk by degrees until they are now only 26 ounces. (last time I checked). That's almost 20% less. Of course the price has also gone up in those years. That's just one example.
Every once in a while you'll see a product that says "20% more free!" or some such, but I always wonder how much they shrank the product the year before.
ReplyWho the heck needs a half pound candy bar? 200 grams is as much as my new saddle weighs on my racing bike!!
ReplyI haven't noticed this; I have noticed the "King Sized snickers bar" because a client told me he ate a 170 calorie snickers bar (proud that he was checking the label as a new habit)... I never heard of such a thing--they've been 280 calories for over 20 years... finally I had an epiphany while standing in line in a drug store counter and picked up a King Sized bar--sure enough there were only 170 calories per serving... but read a little further and see there are 3 (count-em THREE) servings "per package"... yes, he ate 510 calories with no trouble, believing he was doing a good deed with a nice light snack... hmmmm
Reply