Chocolate is good for you. We all know that already - it releases feelgood chemicals in the brain and makes life happier, not counting the benefits of sharing chocolates with your friends which it turns out builds up social capital and goodwill - note to friends: I will love you more if you share with me!
A recent research study exercised mice and measured their fitness levels. A control group were fed small chunks of dark chocolate over the same period and they appeared to have the same if not better levels of fitness as the runners. Here's the link if you don't believe me.. onlinelibrary
Don't get too excited though, a second run of the experiment was undertaken on middle aged mice and the group that ran and had chocolate too did better than the couch-mice who sat around all day (well, I say sit.. but that's quite hard for a mouse to do properly? more like lay around) eating chocolate.
The second is the not so surprising revelation that Cadbury's, purveyors of fine boxes of chocolates that have seen me through many a stressful report writing time, is reducing the number of chocolates in the tin just ahead of the busy Christmas buying period..
No real surprise given the continual reducing size of various chocolate bars over the past years (and don't get me started on cakes!!! see my December 2010 blog on that one here), but I bet they won't reduce the size of the tin they come in. Oh no. How many people are going to be duped into buying what they think are the same number of chocolates?
You know who I think the real culprits are? The stores that continually offer tins of chocolates as loss leaders to draw people in - stacks and stacks of them greeted me last time I walked into Tesco at 'half price' allegedly. Who would pay £10 for a tin? And our local Co-op never seems to have an end to the 2 for £8 offers on Roses tins? If the stores are offering the discounted product, then you can bet they have been squeezing the manufacturer on cost. The manufacturer is then only able to maintain their required profits by doing two things.
The first is to substitute cheaper raw materials into the mix - not something advised in the UK chocolate market which is dominated by only a few brands and where any reduction in quality, if perceived by the customer, would lead to mass switching of brand loyalty and significant pain to the business.
The second option open to manufacturers is to reduce the number of chocolates in the tins. This latest reduction sees Roses down to 1 lb 14 oz from 2 lb 2 oz. That's a reduction from 964g to 850g for metric-heads. Equivalent to an 11.8% reduction. Not a small graudal amount in anybody's book??? Cadbury's Heroes - always and unexplainedly a slightly more expensive purchase for a less luxurious set of chocolates I think you'd agree? - go down from 936g to 794g, a whopping reduction of 15.2%...
Not much we can do about it - except switch brand or get wise and stop buying the Heroes on rational economics grounds. Cadbury's Roses were always my favourite anyhow.
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