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Quality Street named among Christmas chocolate favourites that are shrinking in size

The phenomenon has been labelled 'shrinkflation'

Monday 10 December 2018 14:55 GMT

Relativity Media (The Holiday)

For many, Christmas hasn’t really started until you find yourself surrounded by a sea of colourful chocolate wrappers with nothing but a near-empty tub of Quality Street by your side to show for it.

But that image is beginning to look a little lacklustre, as it turns out that the nation’s favourite Christmas chocolate selection tubs are getting smaller.

Quality Street, Celebrations and Cadbury Roses are among those to have reduced the size of their tubs as part of a phenomenon dubbed “shrinkflation” that sees confectionery brands reducing the size of their products without changing the price.

This year, the standard size of Quality Street tubs has shrunk from 750g to 720g, which is the equivalent of roughly three green triangles.

Meanwhile, Celebrations tins have been reduced from 680g to 650g. But both remain priced at £5.

Cadbury Roses have also been getting smaller, going from 729g to 660g in 2017.

According to Robert Opie, founder of the Museum of Brands in Notting Hill, London, shrinkflation is “outraging” consumers.

“These brands are trusted — we have grown up with them. They are part of our lives and particularly part of the tradition at Christmas,” he tells The Sunday Times.

“You change the weight [of boxed sweets] at your peril.”

Commenting on the reduction, a spokesperson for Nestlé, who produces Quality Street, said, “This year’s tub of Quality Street is 720g, which is slightly lighter than in 2017.

“Nevertheless our tub is very competitive when compared to similar products on the market.”

They explained that the slight drop in weight this year is “to counter the increased costs to manufacture Quality Street that happen, naturally, over time.

“We chose to change the weight rather than the RRP because the weight of our tubs is still very competitive and tubs are regularly on promotion during the season.

“Where possible we try to reduce the RRP to reflect the reduction is size, for example the RRP for the 720g tub today is £7.74. In 2012 the tub was 820g but the RRP was £8.47 so we believe that we offer good value for money.”

Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation

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1/10Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation

Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation

Sir Elton John and Evgeny Lebedev

The Independent has launched it's Christmas charity appeal for essential HIV testing around the world with the Elton John AIDS Foundation. Funds raised will pay for those at risk to be able to get tested, and will make sure they have access to the treatment they need. Sir Elton John and Evgeny Lebedev with their HIV test swabs at the Ponce Centre in Atlanta

Jeremy Selwyn

Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation

Elton John and Andrew Williams

Andrew Williams had never heard of the word HIV when he tested positive. It was his mother who had forced him to go to the doctor where he got the diagnosis that he thought was a death sentence. At that time he was in a wheelchair. It was the unbearable itching of his back that finally got him to get medical help but, he discovered, he not only had HIV but diabetes, high blood pressure and kidney disease. That was two years ago. This week, as the 31-year-old joined Sir Elton John and Evening Standard and The Independent owner Evgeny Lebedev in Atlanta to witness the revolutionary new breakthroughs against the disease at the city’s Grady Ponce De Leon Centre, there was no need for a wheelchair. Nor, he now knew, was there any need for fear

Jeremy Selwyn

Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation

Evgeny Lebedev and Andrew Williams

Within two months of starting the latest antiretroviral drugs, the virus in his body had become undetectable in his blood. Not only is he now healthy, partly due to the drugs and partly due to the healthy lifestyle adopted for his other illnesses, but he can virtually not pass the infection to other people. He feels, he says, “reborn”. “I have a reason to live,” he explained, “and that is to help people who were like me – and to show you’re going to be OK.”

Jeremy Selwyn

Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation

It was a message so stark in its optimism that it reduced Sir Elton to tears. He knows first-hand the realities of what, in the past, an HIV diagnosis can mean. When he started his Elton John AIDS Foundation in the US in 1992, it was because his friends were dying and he wanted to do what he could, anything that he could, to help. “When we set up the Elton John AIDS Foundation we were delivering meals to people’s doors,” he said. “[The stigma meant] they would not go outside. We have come a long way.”

Jeremy Selwyn

Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation

But part of the reason for his tears was not only happiness at Andrew’s story. It was also the knowledge that, despite all the advances that have been made, the fight is far from won – indeed, in some parts of the world, things are getting worse. Sir Elton John with everyone at the Ponce Centre in Atlanta

Jeremy Selwyn

Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation

It is why he and Mr Lebedev had come to Atlanta to mark the first day of our Christmas Appeal, for that city, sadly, is one place where the situation is not only getting worse but, as those at the centre made clear, dramatically so.

Jeremy Selwyn

Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation

Sir Elton John with Vic Mensa at the Ponce Centre

Jeremy Selwyn

Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation

Sir Elton John with his HIV test swab

In Atlanta, one of America’s richest cities and the home of such international corporate giants as Coca-Cola and CNN, if you are a gay black man in 2018 then, unbelievably, you still have a one in two chance of being diagnosed as HIV positive during your lifetime.

Jeremy Selwyn

Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation

Elton John with the mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms

Jeremy Selwyn

Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation

Elton John talks at the Ponce Centre

Jeremy Selwyn

News of the shrinkage comes after research by consumer group Which? revealed that chocolate manufacturers are putting fewer of their most popular sweets inside Christmas selection boxes.

For example, despite Quality Street fans voting the Purple One (hazelnut in caramel) as their favourite, the research showed that there are just five of these chocolates in the average Quality Street tub.

Harry Rose, editor of Which? magazine, said: “Our analysis shows that it’s not your family’s fault that your favourite disappears so quickly – there really are too few Purple Ones to meet demand.

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