Exact amount of Quality Street missing from tubs since 2009 as we examine shrinking packs

IF you feel like Christmas chocolates aren’t what they used to be, you’re not wrong.

Quality Street contains roughly 48 fewer chocolates per box now, compared with the end of the last financial crisis, The Sun can reveal.

This Christmas, chocolate lovers will get only around 620g of sweets (including the weight of the wrappers) per tub – nearly half as much as in 2009, when a tin included 1,100g of wrapped sweets.

We analysed how Quality Street has changed throughout the years and found this year’s tub typically contained around three fewer sweets than last year’s.

Compared with five years ago, there are 13 fewer chocolates in the average tub - based on today’s sweet sizes - and 20 fewer than when Quality Street last came in a tin as standard 10 years ago. 

Overall, the total number of sweets per box has fallen from around 110 in 2009 to roughly 62 today – a decrease of 44 per cent.

The Nestle-owned brand has made several changes to the festive favourite over the last 13 years.

After dropping the weight of chocolates in its Quality Street tin from 1.1kg in 2009 to 1kg in 2010, it then dramatically cut the size by almost a fifth to 820g in 2012.

Then in 2013, it introduced plastic tubs alongside tins, dropping the weight again to 780g.

The tub weight was cut further to 750g during 2016 and 2017, before dropping again to 720g in 2018 and then down to 650g in 2019.

This year, Quality Street tub size was cut yet again but for the first time, the brand has published just the net weight – the weight of the unwrapped chocolates – rather than the gross weight including the wrappers.

It means that while the boxes say they contain “600g net”, this is the equivalent of around 620g of wrapped chocolates, the measure used in previous years.

The RRP of the chocolates changes every year - this year it is £6.72 - but typically supermarkets sell it at the same price of around £5.

Consumer expert Martyn James said the decreasing size of the tubs was an example of shrinkflation – where manufacturers make goods smaller in order to keep prices the same. 

He said the Covid-19 pandemic, war in Ukraine and high shipping and energy costs were driving up prices for manufacturers.

But he added: "For years, the industry has been reducing the size and amount of chocolate goods, often saying that they do so to ensure prices remain the same though the size or quantity has reduced. 

"The problem is, this was going on before the events of the last three years occurred.

"And you can only reduce items so much before people get fed up and stop shopping."

How Quality Street tins have changed

Quality Street tins have continued to be sold since tubs were introduced in 2013.

But they have become a secondary, more expensive product line - often priced around £10.

And the tin size has also been repeatedly shrunk. 

Overall, it has dropped from 1.3kg of wrapped chocolates in 2013 to around 900g this year. 

A Nestle spokesperson said: “Each year we introduce a new Quality Street range with formats, sizes, weights and RRPs based on a range of factors including the cost of manufacturing, ingredients and transport and the preferences of our customers and consumers.

"Final prices are at the discretion of individual retailers.”

They said products on sale this year ranged from a 1.936kg tin to a 220g carton, adding: “We think this range and pricing is competitive and allows a good variety of choices for consumers.”

How have Roses, Heroes and Celebrations changed?

Other family favourites like Roses, Cadbury’s Heroes and Celebrations have also shrunk over the past decade.

But as Quality Street used to be larger than the rest, it has shrunk by a greater percentage.

Mars’ Celebrations gradually dropped from 855g in 2012 to 650g by 2018, but have weighed the same since then.

Cadbury’s Roses tubs weighed 850g a decade ago, while its Heroes tubs weighed 780g. Both have weighed 600g since 2019.

At the time of the last change, Cadbury’s said: “Like all food manufacturers, we sometimes have to make changes to ensure that people can continue to buy their favourite chocolate brands at affordable prices.”

In other Quality Street news, Nestle recently announced it will axe the brightly-coloured wrappers in a bid to be better for the planet.

The move will stop nearly two billion wrappers a year from ending up in landfills, but it has nevertheless angered traditionalists.