Products within the sugar, jam, syrups, chocolate and confectionery categories have been hit by the “shrinkflation” trend over the last five years.

Shrinkflation is a term used to describe the business practice of changing the physical weight of a product, while keeping its price constant. 

The Office for National Statitistics (ONS) has reported that changing pack sizes contributed 1.22 percentage points to the rate of inflation of those items since the beginning of 2012.

This has also been attributed to manufacturers’ rising raw material costs, such as sugar and cocoa. The European import price of sugar has been slowly falling since the middle of 2014 and in March 2017 it reached its lowest level since the International Monetary Fund records began in 1991.

Many sweet products have had notable reductions recently. At the end of last year, Toblerone reduced its bar size from 400g to 360g to provide chocolate lovers with 11 peaks, instead of 15. Terry’s Chocolate Orange shrunk last year too, taking it from from 175g to 157g.