Cadbury Creme Egg sales crack as fans sour on new recipe
Cadbury has suffered a lag in Creme Egg sales after it controversially moved away from using Dairy Milk chocolate in the recipe last January.
As the confectionary company gears up for Easter, the most lucrative sales window for Creme Eggs, research by analysts IRI for The Grocer found that the product (and its empty chocolate shell eggs) dropped by £6m in 2015.
Its entire Easter line, including Easter eggs, saw a £10m slump as its market share lessened from 42 to 40 per cent.
The UK chocolate producer was purchased by American food behemoth Kraft in 2010 for £11.7bn and ever since, there’s often been a sizeable backlash accompanying any changes to the recipes, branding or pricing of each product.
The company’s 2015 decision to forgo the sale of chocolate coins is one such issue.
Mondelez argues that the recipe change was not the cause of slumping sales, with its marketing manager Claire Low telling The Grocer: "The fundamentals of Cadbury Creme Egg remain exactly the same. It's simply not the case that Creme Egg has always been made with Cadbury Dairy Milk.
"To strengthen our positioning, we will continue to invest in power brands, launching new seasonal products and a brand new Easter pack design,” she said.
In January 2015, the Creme Egg sparked anger on social media after it was revealed that the six-egg multipack was to be reduced to a five-unit package, with no alteration of price. Cadbury 'blamed rising commodity costs' on the shift.