25 Jun 2015 Nestlé Tex bar ain’t what it used to be
A recent ruling by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) – largely SA consumers only point of effective redress despite the Consumper Protection Act – has uncovered another example of ‘shrinkflation’ so prevalent in the confectionery aisles.
Consumer, Derek Allan-Barrett, was so irked that his Tex chocolate bar did not look nearly as good as the image on the wrapping that he took the trouble of lodging a complaint of misleading packaging with the ASA.
“Rich creamy Nestlé milk chocolate with Aero centre and filled biscuit wafers” is how Tex is described on the wrapper‚ with an image of two thin wafers at the top and bottom with a fat chocolate section in the middle.
But the actual bar “has an almost nonexistent chocolate Aero centre”, Allan-Barrett complained‚ being “dominated” instead by the wafer biscuits.
Responding‚ Nestlé explained to the ASA how the chocolate centre compressed when bitten into‚ resulting in a deformed chocolate section‚ before revealing that the company recently decided to change Tex’s composition‚ making it more wafer orientated with less chocolate in the centre‚ “in line with its health and wellness strategy”.
The sceptics would vouch that this strategy was more about reducing its input costs‚ given that chocolate costs more to produce than wafer.
Unfortunately‚ and due to oversight‚ Nestlé said‚ the packaging was not amended timeously to align with the new composition.
When the company realised this‚ it told the ASA‚ it immediately implemented steps to begin production of the new packaging‚ which is to start by the end of June.
The company submitted to the ASA directorate examples of the new packaging‚ reflecting an image of a cross-section of the bar with “substantially less” chocolate in the centre.
The directorate said it was satisfied that the new wrapper image would address Allan-Barrett’s concerns and accepted Nestlé’s undertaking to amend the wrapping image‚ provided the old wrapping was discontinued and not used again.
The “let them get less” phenomena is not going to go away anytime soon in SA’s battered economy, where most innovation is about chopping, cutting and reducing input costs, supposedly sight unseen by consumers, as FMCG producers look to protect their bottom lines.
Source: BDLive/ASA