'Tis the season for shrinkflation! Which? reveals the Christmas items that have shrunk

Have you picked up your favourite box of Christmas chocolates and thought it seemed smaller than last year? You might be right.

Which? research has found more victims of 'shrinkflation' – when grocery items shrink in size, but the price remains the same or increases.

Below we reveal the Christmas dinner staples and popular sweet treats that have shrunk, with bad news for chocolate lovers in particular.

Which festive favourites have shrunk? 

We compared the size and price of a range of festive products in October 2023 vs October 2024, and found examples of shrinkflation that could leave you paying the same or more for a smaller pack.  

Ocean Spray’s cranberry sauces have shrunk the most. Both its smooth and whole cranberry sauces went from 250g to 200g, meaning you get 20% less in a jar this year. Yet both sauces remained the same price in Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons.

Less costs more for many favourite Christmas chocs 

Chocolates in particular seem to have suffered from shrinkflation over the last year. Cadbury said it was ‘getting a head start on the Christmas magic’ when it announced the return of its chocolate-filled Mini Snowballs on Instagram in October, but neglected to mention that the family-sized bag has shrunk. It’s now 270g instead of 296g. 

Despite the smaller size, the price has actually increased since last year at Asda, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Waitrose, meaning Snowball fans paid 20% more for 9% less in October. When you work it out per 100g, that’s a 'magical' price increase of over 30%.

Then there’s Nestlé’s Dairy Box – the ‘winter collection’ now has 36 chocolates instead of 40, and only contains eight different chocolates instead of 10. Yet it cost £2 more than last year in Asda stores, while the price stayed the same in Tesco and Sainsbury’s. All three were charging £9 in October (not including any special offers).

Smaller cartons of Dairy Box have also shrunk without decreasing in price at several supermarkets: a small box now has 16 instead of 20 chocolates (160g), while the 'classic collection' has 32 rather than 40 sweets (322g). 

Other Christmas favourites that have shrunk since last year, while the price has remained the same or increased, include: 

• Cadbury's medium Santa selection box – shrunk in size from 145g to 125g (14% smaller). Biggest price increase per 100g: 59% at Morrisons (it cost the same at Sainsbury’s and Waitrose this year).
• Cadbury's Buttons selection box – shrunk in size from 375g to 340g (9% smaller). Biggest price increase per 100g: 19% at Sainsbury’s.

• Celebrations tub – shrunk in size from 600g to 550g (8% smaller). Biggest price increase per 100g: 45% price increase at Asda (it cost the same at several other supermarkets this year).
• Two individual Quality Street chocolates have shrunk: the purple hazelnut sweet is 12% smaller and the orange one is 4% smaller. The net weight of the 600g tub remains the same, though.

Which Christmas goodies shrank in 2023? 

Festive products that shrank between October 2022 and October 2023 without decreasing in price include:

• Bisto Best turkey gravy granules – from 230g to 150g (35% smaller) 
• Rowntree’s Jelly Tots giant tube – from 130g to 115g (12% smaller)

• Milkybar buttons giant tube – from 90g to 80g (11% smaller).

Cheapest supermarket in November: can Aldi beat Tesco Clubcard prices?

Why are products shrinking? 

Shrinking pack sizes allow food and drink manufacturers to cut costs without increasing prices (although sometimes they do both). 

Shrinkflation has become more common since food prices soared in 2022. But food inflation is now at its lowest rate in three years; inflation dipped to 1.8% in November, with prices rising slightly faster for packaged food at 2.7% according to the British Retail Consortium. 

Yet the price of chocolate is rising faster than other groceries, in part because poor harvests in West Africa have driven up the cost of cocoa. In September, the Which? supermarket inflation tracker revealed chocolate had the fastest-rising prices of the 20 food and drink categories we track – annual inflation was 11% in August. 

The latest figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) show that chocolate and confectionary prices continue to climb. The average price of a bag of chocolates went up by 10% in the 12 months to October, while the cost of a milk chocolate bar rose by 8% on average.

Nevertheless, when you work out the price increase per 100g, almost all of the sweet treats listed above rose in price by considerably more than the ONS's inflation figures at the supermarkets we've highlighted.

Which? food inflation tracker: what's happening to grocery costs?

What the manufacturers said

We put our findings to the manufacturers and to the supermarkets, which set the retail price of products.

Nestlé, which makes Dairy Box, Jelly Tots, Milky Bar and Quality Street, said: ‘Like every manufacturer, we have experienced significant cost increases making it much more expensive to manufacture our products. We have been working to be more efficient and absorb increasing costs where possible. However, in order to maintain the same high quality and delicious taste that consumers know and love, it has sometimes been necessary to make adjustments to the weight of some of our products. Retail pricing is always at the sole discretion of individual retailers.'

Regarding the resizing of two Quality Street chocolates, it said: ‘The new sweets are slightly lighter, but the net weight of the tub remains the same. This means people are still getting the same amount of delicious Quality Street product they know and love – just in a slightly different format.’

A spokesperson for Mars Wrigley UK, which makes Celebrations, said: ‘We are actively looking at ways to absorb the rising costs of raw materials and operations as we know the increase in the cost of living is impacting both consumers and businesses across the UK. Unfortunately, the growing pressures mean that more needs to be done. Reducing the size of our products is not a decision we have taken lightly but it is necessary for shoppers to still be able to enjoy their favourite Celebrations treats without compromising on quality or taste.' 

It added: ‘As we continue our journey to find solutions which have lower environmental impact, we have also examined our packaging and have decided to reduce the size of the tub itself. This move has seen us reduce the plastic used in the packaging by 17%, which aligns with our sustainability targets as a business and helps reduce the environmental impact of our packaging.'  

Ocean Spray said: ‘Rather than increasing prices at shelf like most of the competition, we took the opportunity to resize the jars to the category norm.'

Premier Foods, which owns Bisto, said it's been sharpening its promotional pricing over the last year and its Bisto Best turkey gravy granules are now widely available at a discounted price of £2. 

We received no response from Cadbury’s owner Mondelez International. The supermarkets declined to comment. 

Which? research

We compared the size and price of a wide range of Christmas items in October 2022, 2023 and 2024 at the UK’s biggest supermarkets. We also asked Which? Facebook group members for examples they'd seen. When comparing prices from one year to the next, we didn’t include special offers, member-only loyalty prices or multibuy promotions.