Trust in Cadbury? Readers Digest readers are morons.
Once upon a time I loved Cadbury chocolate.
Despite being treated like roadkill by Cadbury over the last 12 months I still fondly remember buying my first chocolate block.
I’d saved up roughly two weeks of pocket money and trundled into my local IGA supermarket. I knew I was paying slightly more for my chocolate but the economic offset of travelling to a nearby Coles at such a young age wasn’t worth it.
I knew exactly where to go and for the princely sum of around $2 or so I walked away with my first self bought block of Cadbury Top Deck. I didn’t get very far before the block was wolfed down and thus began my love affair with Cadbury chocolate.
Fast forward to today and it’s a completely different picture. After being kicked in the groin for 12 months with steel cap boots by Cadbury to the point of not recognising my own testicles anymore, myself and many others wondered with amazement how Cadbury are in business after a series of horrendously bad decisions.
Today I learned that it turns out Readers Digest readers are the sole reason Cadbury are still in business today.
Cadbury’s chocolate downfall started when the company announced back in May 2009 that they were reducing the chocolate block size from 250g to 220g and introducing palm oil.
Not too familiar with palm oil and chocolate I gave Cadbury the benefit of the doubt and did some taste testing myself.
Eating Cadbury’s new recipe was like standing on a runway and have a space shuttle plough into you upon re-entry.
Despite the unforgivable change in taste, texture and value for money Cadbury insisted it was what chocolate lovers wanted. In a press release Cadbury stated
“Our research and consumer testing shows that adding a small amount of vegetable fat to our recipe makes the chocolate slightly softer to bite, whilst still maintaining the great taste of Australia’s favorite chocolate,” he said.
“This research shows that consumers are still happy with the taste of Cadbury Dairy Milk milk chocolate that includes vegetable fat.”
Unfortunately they didn’t budge on the block size and thought it acceptable to continue to rip off consumers. After all, smaller block sizes at the same premium price are what chocolate lovers wanted remember.
Nearly a year later Cadbury were still shipping out chocolate blocks that taste like utter garbage, presumably due to their excess reserves of palm oil that needed to be cleared before the company could return to the old recipe.
After an email followup I was advised that the crappy tasting Cadbury blocks could be avoided by buying chocolate blocks with a best by date after the 22nd of November 2010.
So ended a horrendous year for chocolate lovers in Australia. Yet despite all this monumental cockup Readers Digest readers still voted Cadbury as Australia’s most trusted food company.
Seriously, are you kidding me?!
If skullfucking your loyal customer fanbase for 12 months with a 13″ diameter cactus dipped in molten hot lava qualifies you to be the country’s most trusted food company, then either Australia’s food industry is in more trouble than most of us realise, or Readers Digest readers are freaking morons.
Readers Digest claims their circulation demographics appear to be around the 50 years old mark with a household income of about $50,000. The only other non-moron explanation I can come up with is that firstly your taste buds enter some serious decline after about 50 years and that Readers Digest readers have so much money, that they’re just buying Cadbury out of habit before throwing the blocks out uneaten.
Seriously how the hell can you give a trust award to a company that’s treated its loyal customer base like utter garbage over the past twelve months?! I’d hate to see Reader’s Digest readers be put in charge of deciding anything worthwhile… Jesus Christ guys, hang your heads in shame.
June 29th, 2010 at 10:51 am lemmiwinks(Quote)
I’m pretty seriously addicted to their Mint Bubbly. If that’s in the fridge it seriously tests my self control. I’ve found the taste of the standard milk chocolate to be hit and miss in the past so maybe that was to do with the oil, who knows.
For real chocolate I’ll go Lindt anyway
June 29th, 2010 at 2:45 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
As much as I love mint flavoured chocolate mixed with milk chocolate I’m always turned off ‘bubble’ chocolate because they charge you for the air!
Universally air bubble chocolate is priced the same as the normal weighted blocks and this annoys me, regardless of how good it tastes.
I first noticed it with Nestle’s Aero blocks and it seems Cadbury are doing the same with their Bubbly. Normal block is 220g and the Mint Bubbly block weighs in at 175g.
That’s like more then an entire Mars Bar worth of chocolate missing!
Although not a fan back in Australia, I’ve had to rely on Lindt to get anything remotely resembling good chocolate here in Taiwan. Even then I’ve got to get it from special botique supermarkets as it’s not widely available.
Asians don’t seem to care about chocolate too much
.
June 29th, 2010 at 9:47 pm One(Quote)
Cadbury have become absolutely horrendous in terms of declining quality and ripping us off.
Don’t know if you ever eat the individual cadbury chocolate bars like cherry ripe, crunchy, and picnic but they have all been downsized over the last year or two by about 10% while still charging us the same price!!!!
I’ve also noticed the regular chocolate is much less quality as well, very rough and coarse. Im assuming that making chocolate smooth like lindt costs more money so they don;t bother with it to save money and max profit.
Seriously readers digest people are damn stupid!!!!!!
June 30th, 2010 at 3:54 am Peter Fumberger(Quote)
Come on mate, it happens everywhere, this downsizing with the price remaining the same. Look at all the other munchies in the stores, the 500g generic brands of lollies, some of my faves actually, are now 400g, 350g.
Is it right? Of course it isn’t, but that’s just their way of inflating prices without inflating prices, people thinking how great it is that prices haven’t gone up for a long time.
I didn’t have the displeasure of eating Cadburys with the palm oil, having been out of the country for 4 years, but the price and size did irk me, Cadburys being my fave chocolate, for taste and price anyway.
Swiss white chocolate truffles are my fave, but I’ve eaten only one in my life, back in 1996 in Geneva, a truffle not much bigger than a Ferrero Rocher, for 2 Swiss francs. Way out of my league, but deliciously yummy.
I just buy chocolate now when it is $3 or less, which is pretty much all the time, be it at Coles or Woolies or IGA or Target, or Fishers in my home town, it’s always on special somewhere. Sadly at the moment it’s my only vice, but it’s a wonderful vice.
June 30th, 2010 at 3:02 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
True but it doesn’t make it right. If people realise it’s happenning it only begs the question why aren’t they more vocal about it?
Inflating prices without inflating prices isn’t any better then ripping us off by reducing chocolate bar sizes!
You should still be able to find some around. Just walk into any supermarket and look for vegetable fat or something similar in the ingredients. Be warned though, consumption of palm oil chocolate might induce fits of chocolate fuelled rage against Cadbury.
Mmm. If truffles are anything like Ferrero Rocher then I need to stay away. I can wolf down an entire box of those things in a few minutes.
June 30th, 2010 at 3:09 pm Peter Fumberger(Quote)
White chocolate truffles, at least the one I had in Geneva, would be at least 20 times as deliciously yummy as Ferrero Rocher.
June 30th, 2010 at 3:13 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Great! So I’m sitting here at my desk, it’s almost lunchtime and all I can think about is trying white chocolate truffles… knowing full well there’s probably not even one truffle available in Taiwan.
I hate you.
June 30th, 2010 at 7:01 pm Peter Fumberger(Quote)
Now listen here ozboy, I may have written on another topic that might have upset you, but to hate me for telling you just how sensationally deliciously scrummo, yes, scrummo, much more yummy than yummy itself, Swiss white chocolate truffles are, how much more delicious than ordinary old boring Ferrero Rocher they are, well, methinks that is a tad harsh.
But have no fear, I shall have some Cadburys in your honour. I bought 6 blocks the other day in Woolies, at $2.50 each. You just can’t beat that price, and taste, and I’m surprised I didn’t get 10, even 20.
I’m housesitting in Rockingham for a month and I would have gone through them real easy Campese.
Pete
October 16th, 2010 at 12:33 pm Markey mark(Quote)
I dont feel that ozsoapbox said anything to intentionally upset you, if that’s the case, methinks that your “feelings” are hurt to easily.
That’s great “Peter Fumberger” enjoy your overpriced chocolate with the rip off price of fifty dollars (as thats afterall the total price of twenty blocks) as your essentially paying for a smaller size and lower cocoa content than Wool Worth’s Select’s (now that’s saying something) just don’t wander into a shop any day soon and think about trying real chocolate as your wallet will feel the pinch.
October 16th, 2010 at 1:10 pm Pete Fumberger(Quote)
Marky mark, in the immortal words of Pauline Hanson, ‘Ploise explain!!’
I honestly don’t know where you are coming from. OzBoy didn’t upset me, we were chatting playfully about how much he loves good chocolate and I was telling him just how scrummo Swiss truffle chocolates are, and he was having a good old salivate because he can’t get good chocky in Taiwan, or at least that’s what I think the article was about, and I was rubbing it in.
Methinks you have just beclowned yourself, and for mine, you can stick Woolies Select chockies up your bum. Compared to Cadburys, contrary to your opinion on the matter, they don’t compare. My wallet can stretch that far, but most certainly not with the Swiss truffles.
As for less cocoa, woohoo, that’s how I like it, as too much cocoa makes it too dark chocolaty, which I don’t like, so that’s another point of yours that is pointless to me. Your whole post was pointless, in all point of fact.
Ozboy, you should vet some comments mate so blokes don’t make themselves out to be silly. Mm probably voted for KRudd and the rancid ranga. Says it all really.
No more comments from me on this matter, I don’t wish OzBoy to be drooling over his keyboard thinking about those Swiss truffles, or to bring myself down to Mm’s level.
Oh, and one more thing, you can beat that $2.50 price. Sometimes at Coles they have the dollar specials, and Cadburys is occasionally on for 2 for $4, and I have asked my mate Darren to get me 10 block for when I return to Australia in 6 weeks. I’m presently in Malaysia where you can’t get decent chocolate either, unless you pay a veritable fortune (like in Manila, Machiavelli chocolates look exceptionally scrummo, but their prices are astronomical).