Cadbury has increased the size of its Dairy Milk chocolate block by 10% due to consumer feedback. But that's still a good chunk less than its bars from four years ago.
Cadbury unveiled the changes today, which also includes new packaging, the addition of whole nuts and differently shaped chocolate pieces.
Cadbury has also pledged to keep its recommended retail price on its enlarged 220 gram block the same as the 200 gram block. However, it stressed it was up to retailers to ensure the price stayed the same.
In 2009, Cadbury controversially reduced its standard 250 gram block to 200 grams. At the time, it also replaced cocoa butter with palm oil in its ingredient list but that decision was later reversed after a public backlash.
At the time, retailers also failed to reduce the price of the smaller block which embroiled the chocolate maker in a mini PR storm. According to UK's Marketing Week publication, Cadbury had written on its website at the time: “The fact is cocoa prices have doubled in the last two years. For most of this time, we’ve taken this on the chin. So we had a choice - increase the price of our Cadbury Dairy Milk milk chocolate and potentially put it out of reach for many of our customers or reduce the product size and costs. We didn’t want anybody to miss out just because of price and so we decided to reduce the size and reduce the price we charge our retailers.”
Late last year, Cadbury also introduced two new flavour variants to its Dairy Milk Mousse range which saw the existing products reduced from 160 grams to 145 grams in line with the brand extensions. Retailers' prices on these products appeared to stay the same at the time.
The company claimed the changes unveiled today is the “most significant [enhancements] in the brand's 132-year history”. There will also be a new campaign to support it next month.
Cadbury general manager marketing Ben Wicks said in a statement: “We listen to our passionate chocolate lovers and when we realised there was a way for us to deliver more joy to thousands of Australians, we got straight to work.
“As Australia's most loved chocolate brand we are always looking to improve the eating experiences. Joy is at the heart of everything we do, it is also behind these changes which reinforce our brand philosophy by multiplying the joy for chocolate lovers.”
Cadbury had not responded to questions around previous size reductions at the time of publication.
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