Tabloids have been obsessed with chocolate’s vanishing act for years. Shrinking tubs of Roses chocolates, hollowed out Orange Chocolate segments and Heroes tins sold 11 chocolates short have all stirred up vitriolic headlines in recent years. But few confectionery brands have whipped up quite the outrage as Toblerone in November when consumers spotted its smallest SKU had been stripped of some of its trademark triangles.
Compared with a bike stand, a toast rack and a bookshelf, the new lighter bar had lost two of its 11 peaks, leaving gaping holes where once delicious milk chocolate had stood. Labelled underhand and conniving, the brand found itself at once a laughing stock and a target across social media.
But though the redesign wasn’t about to win NPD accolades, it was necessary, insisted manufacturer Mondelez. “We had to make a decision between changing the shape of the bar, and raising the price.”
Soaring ingredient costs rather than the result of the EU referendum were to blame, they added, but with commodity costs in flux ever since the political bombshell landed, sceptics remain convinced the missing pair of chocolate triangles were swallowed up in the aftermath of a post-Brexit Britain.
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