Customer fury as UK’s favourite chocolate’s £1.40 multipack shrinks meaning it’s cheaper to buy a single 30p bar
PACKS of Freddos have shrunk from five to four — making the family favourites cheaper to buy individually.
The new smaller multipacks still cost £1.40 at Tesco, meaning the price of each chocolate bar has gone from 28p to 35p. Meanwhile, single ones cost about 30p.
Experts have blamed the move — equivalent to a 25 per cent price increase — on the soaring cost of cocoa.
But customers on the Tesco website said it was just another example of shrinkflation.
One wrote: “A single Freddo is 30p and pack of Freddos used to be a 5 pack but now a 4 pack is £1.40.
“Make it make sense.”
Another said: “Cheaper to buy 4 bars separately, used to get 5 bars at this price.”
Tesco and Waitrose are the first to stock the new packs, with Waitrose offering them for a promotional price of £1, down from £1.80.
Other supermarkets still have the five-packs in stock.
Cadbury’s owner Mondelez International said it had to pass on higher costs for ingredients, energy and transport.
Susannah Streeter, of investment company Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “The sharp rise in the cost of cocoa, which is such a crucial ingredient, has caused a big headache for chocolate manufacturers.
“They have also had to absorb higher energy costs and wage growth.
“But producers know consumers will not swallow much bigger increases.
“Though wholesale prices have come down slightly, they remain triple the price compared to two years ago.
“So, reducing the numbers of bars in packs or the weight of individual products is the strategy they are deploying.”
Harvir Dhillon, economist at the British Retail Consortium, said: “Chocolate prices, which are largely decided by large manufacturers, have been hit hard by global cocoa prices.
“The cost of cocoa has been badly affected by poor harvests in parts of Africa.”
