I've noticed that there are eggs out there in both sizes. Sold individually, the eggs are smaller. However, the eggs sold in 3-packs are the same size I remember from my youth.

K

Really struggling for an easter themed story huh?

I thought something was up, considering how many cartons of Cadbury Eggs I've bought in the last few years!

I'm going off really fuzzy memory on this, but I believe a few years ago I noticed the ones in the 4-packs were smaller than the individually wrapped ones, probably to justify 4 packed eggs costing less than 1 individual egg. Anyways, at that time I just bought individuals due to the size.

Well this year, the individuals were the same size as the 4-packs, so I didn't think about it. Something was nagging, though, and this explains why!

This is part of the problem with products that only come out once a year. Your memory gets fuzzy, and people forget, so companies think they can slide a fast one by ya.

I'm surprised Cadbury denied this. Every company has shrunk their products - it's called, actually I can't remember the term for it.

But Twinkies are smaller, Milanos are smaller... those little bag of M&M's have so few M&M's in them now it is almost comical.

Have you seen some of those smaller boxes of breakfast cereal that have come out? I don't mean the ones for single-size eating, I mean the ones that are supposed to be replacing the regular box. Are they out of their minds?

I noticed this about 2 years ago when I started working part-time at a local grocery store. Someone came through my line and I said "wait a minute, did these get smaller?" and the customer replied "Yeah! I was thinking the exact same thing, but I thought I was crazy!" I think Cadbury must have thought that since almost a year passes between when they're on sale and when they're not, we wouldn't notice. Wrong!

Nothing constructive to add. Just that I KNEW IT!

Yeah; instead of raising prices, they make the product smaller. Happens all the time. Especially with pizza slices!!! :(

Chocolate bunnies have shrunk a bit too.

yeah. has anyone else noticed they taste like shit now too? i mean, before they were decent. now they taste like oreo filling with tons of extra sugar so that's like all you taste

It seems that companies are all jumping on the "make the product a smidge smaller" bandwagon. Note the earlier story on Sudafed (http://consumerist.com/consumer/sudafed/sudafed-pe-pregnant-women-should-watch-out-for-reformulated-medicines-250442.php) where the old box had 24 tablets and the new reformulated version has only 18.
There's also new packages and flavors for the Tassimo hot beverage machine -- each package used to have 10 drink "discs" in it; but they changed the packaging about 6 months ago and now they contain only 8... but the price is the same. The practical result is that they actually raised the price of the product by 20%, but since the shelf price didn't go up, no one noticed.

defectiveburger - I noticed that I don't like the eggs anymore, but I thought it was because I've been eating more dark chocolate and some milk chocolate is starting to taste too sweet to me. But I still like Cadbury's milk chocolate bars, so maybe it is the eggs that have changed.

that picture is real cute and all. but come on! any excuse to post a kitty picture, right Consumerist?

So now we're complaining that companies are cutting out the fatty stuff (but charging us the same).

So we want our cake, and eat it for our fat-asses, too?

Candy manufacturers do this all the time. Candy is an impulse purchase and extremely price-sensitive. When ingredient costs go up, the manufacturer can't really bump the price up on a Snickers that's been 59¢ for years.

What is surprising is that Cadbury would deny it. I thought this was common knowledge.

Too many cats on Consumerist, and not enough dogs. Is discrimination now acceptable?

You know what I've been looking for...

Last year Nestle made a crunch based easter egg. Crunch on the outside, caramel on the inside. I got addicted to those, but they disappeared a couple weeks before Easter with no warning.

This year, despite the easter candy being out for what seems like 2 months, I've been looking around for those Crunch eggs. No dice. =/

I first started to notice that with ice-cream. "Half-gallon" containers of ice cream suddenly became "1.75 quarts."

People would immediately notice when something costs more, but companies are hoping that people don't notice if they keep the price close to what it was, but give you less. Obviously, it would be very bad marketing for a company to put a huge "Now 25% Smaller!' on a package..so I can't really blame them for not doing that, but for the most part, it certainly feels like manufacturers are trying to trick people and hope that nobody notices that they're getting less for their money.

It's also interesting to watch who leads and who follows. I noticed on the ice-cream that some of the brands were still half gallons, and some were 1.75 quarts..and in some cases, the same company would have half gallons of frozen yogurt, while they're Super Peanut-Butter Fudge Deluxe ice cream was in the smaller container. I've also noticed that if one company does it and appears to get away with it, the others will follow (like the airlines do when ticket prices go up).

Of course, this has nothing to do with cutting fat or calories, and everything to do with costs and profit.

It's one thing to downsize a product and be perfectly honest about it, but I can't believe that Cadbury would out and out deny it.

It's common knowledge that food companies have always been down to 'shrink' the size of their products instead of raising the price or lowering the quality of ingredients to save money.

You know what? Those eggs are already way too sweet for me, and giving that to a kid is just asking for a sugar rush nightmare (for you). But it does seem true that the eggs sold in muti-packs are smaller than the ones sold individually, or vice versa... I just can't recall which way it goes.

The eggs didn't just recently start tasting like shit. You've just gotten bigger.

I'd like to know what resources we have to draw on to right this travesty. Can we have full-page ad-buys in the New York Times, organized robo-push-polls, or perhaps an organized smear campaign. I'm thinking about "Swift Boat Veterans Against Contra-sized Confectionery"...

There is no other issue in this age so deserving of our crusade, we must devote all of our efforts for the very near future to making Cadbury correct the size of the creme eggs, admit their malodorous misinformation campaign, and send us all caseloads of free creme eggs. And perhaps some insulin.

That is all.

-- Mr. Shiney
http://mrshiney.froppy.com/blog/

C'mon people! Cadbury eggs are shinking just as glaciers and ice-shelves are melting? I think we all know what's going on, but no one wants to say it out loud...

@Rajio: Don't be silly. This was a fascinating story on conan the other night and it's still interesting. I can't believe they would just blatantly lie on their site. Isn't that what consumerist is here for?

@segfault
...too many cats...not enough dogs...

Amen to that!

And furthermore, whatever happened to Rice Crispy Treats Cereal? I can't find it anywhere!

http://www.krunk4ever.com/blog/?p=1041

In my blog post, I noted:

Despite the fact that the site says the eggs only look smaller because you've gotten bigger, that fact sheet has been around since 2003 or earlier. From Internet Archive Wayback Machine, the earliest cache of this page is on October 28, 2003, and even then it has the same FAQ, so I don't think this question was posted up to address the size change this year, but most people aren't going to see it that way.

ever noticed how a half gallon of ice cream is now 1.75 quarts?

Uggghhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

Hulk mad. Must Smmmmmassssshhhhhh!!!!!

You put the cad in Cadbury. Shame Cadbury.....Shaaaaaaaaaaame!!!!!!

I usually hate using this acronym but faust1200's comment truly deserves a LOL

@Takkun:

Welcome to my life quest-which has a happy ending. For years I have searched everywhere for this cereal, which is the unquestionably the greatest cereal ever made. I checked every store I went in to. NOTHING. It even got to a point where I had to tell myself that it wasn't that good, but my memories of how good this cereal was were romanticized and fictional.

I looked on the Kellogg's website, thinking that they no longer made it. Nope, they still make it. They even had a store locator. No luck, No stores in Washington. Or Idaho. Or Oregon. Then I was guided to check amazon.com. They do sell it, but you have to buy a case of it, and though I could easily go through a case if it was good as I remembered, I feared that it wasn't, and it wouldn't be worth the extra money for shipping and a large quantity.

Then, the unthinkable. A few weeks ago, when coming home for lunch like on any other normal day, I was greeted by a daughter who was giddy and clamoring for me to check my email. I went to my office, and to my extreme delight, there sitting in front of my iMac, was a big purple box that contained Kellogg's Rice Krispy Treats Cereal.

Let me tell you, it was every bit as good as I remembered. And then some.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my local Wal-Mart for being the one place that carries this cereal with the perfectly balanced amount of chunch, sweetness, and taste.

There is hope, my friend.

This is a typical bait and switch the food makers do. Instead of increasing the price, they make the product smaller. Most shoppers are oblivious so they don't see the hidden price increase for less product.

The jig is up Cadbury. We're on to you and we're not gonna take those small eggs anymore! Except for this year, please hand me an egg. Of course by next year I will have forgotten anyway...

Candy and food companies are not the only ones guilty of this. Feminine products have been doing it for years. Every now and then, over the years, I'd go to buy a box of tampons, and there would be two or more less per box at the same price. Then they'd have a "special bargain" where you get a couple extra.

Drug companies do it too. Rather than raise their price a few cents per unit, they just put less in the box.

This is not a new marketing scheme, but for the Cadbury company to deny it outright is pretty shoddy.

The FAQ you cite is for the UK. The American site, which is run by Hershey's who manufacturers them makes NO reference to the size.

Last year they were 1.38 ounces, they are 1.2 ounces this year.

What's the big deal? The candy got smaller.

I actually NOTICED this, and I hate the (my fiance adores them)

I was quite shocked when I saw them, Im positive they where smaller.

AHA! I was eating one tonight and I was thinking the exact same thing. Now i come here and I get confirmation of my suspicion.

@Athenor: Actually at home I have crunch/peanut butter eggs. Purchased at a CVS store in Orlando, FL.

Easter has the best candy of the year. Valentine's has the worst by far.

Ok im british (the home of the cadbury creme egg) we have them year round so i was dissapointed to find their seasonal here in good 'ol US of A :(

This debate has been going on for YEARS back in blighty and is now fairly common knowledge that the egg size shrunk around 5-6 years ago. I then came here and noticed that you had a mix of small and large. The diffrence is the small ones are UK born and large are US born (hershey made). I guess hershey finnally updated their molds and now your getting 100% small creme eggs.

Welcome to getting old and things not being as good as when you were a kid.

i bet they will now call it...the lower calorie version.

talk about PR sunshine up the consumer's rear end.

whats with the less cats more dogs thing?
how about a chicken instead

I get the strategy for ice cream and tampons but
I would think they would just hike the price up a few pennies on those eggs. Easter is only once a year so I would think people wouldn't mind splurging 64 cents as opposed to 60 or however much they cost.

@itsgene: Yeah, no kidding. First they take out the stuff that makes the product actually WORK (apparently, they think selling placebos won't put their repuation in the dirt) then they give you less of the junk. Figures.

@Takkun, @mattshu,

I haven't been able to find RKT Cereal out in OR, so my mother-in-law sends me a box a couple times a year (she gets it at Meijer in MI). It's so delicious.

I can't believe that you haven't corrected this story and the links yet. The website you're citing is for the UK and does not apply to the eggs made in the United States under license by Hershey's. There's "no there there."

@typetive: Uhm, they're still smaller here, so the complaint still applies.

@joemono:

You should expect your initiation information in the mail shortly. Welcome to the cult of RKT.

@segfault:

How do you know that's not a DOG dressed up like a cat dressed up like a bunny?

buran - you can complain that the eggs are smaller, but it's not like Hershey's has lied to us about it. I'm just saying that the link to the UK site is not valid for the American product and warrants an update.

I do believe that for things like the Creme Egg the proportions are important and mucking with it does actually change the product. (I don't think it's that big of a deal for a solid bar.) Personally, I prefer more chocolate shell than filling, but I see other people's points about not being able to fit their tongue into the smaller shell now. The change in size has removed a "feature" besides giving them less product.

The remedy is a class action suit that will offer plaintiffs either larger eggs or tongue reduction surgery.

Hang on, don't necessarily blame Hershey for all of this. My box of 4 ?regular? eggs reads, "Mfd. in England for The Hershey Company (Hershey's address) Under License from Cadbury Ltd."

However, the back label on my bar of "Cadbury Royal Dark" chocolate reads, "Mfd. by The Hershey Company (address) Under License from Cadbury Ltd."

The conspiracy started about 10 years ago, coffee was bought in 1 lb or 5lb cans now instead of 5lbs you get 3lbs and the price went up too. Canned goods came in 8 or 16 oz cans now the 16oz cans are 15 oz, soup came in 12 oz cans now 103/4 oz. So Cadbury is just following trends. But of packaging is getting smaller and we are getting bigger could that be part of the conspiracy,too?