First it was the shrinking of the Toblerone bar. Now, Cadbury’s has announced that it has to pare down the size of its chocolate, or raise prices, after Brexit.
The head of Cadbury in U.K., Glenn Canton, told the Guardian that the company is committed to staying in the U.K. but will follow an industry strategy known as ‘shrinkflation,’ where smaller products are sold for the same price, or shift the burden of higher costs onto customers.
“There are obviously challenges and there are three things that we really care about in the context of the Brexit negotiations. First of all is making sure we have a stable and thriving U.K. economy,” Caton told the Guardian. “If the economy is growing, all businesses benefit from that. The second is ensuring that there is no new, more complex regulation and that there is free movement of goods and minimal barriers to trade. Regulation impacts complexity, complexity impacts costs, as do trade barriers and tariffs.”
Mondelez International, Cadbury’s parent company, sparked outrage last year when it shrank the Toblerone bar by 150g after the Brexit vote, making a bigger space between each triangle. A packet of Cadbury Creme Eggs has also been downsized from six eggs to five, while the price of a Freddo’s chocolate bar has increased by 20%.