Fans of Cadbury’s Fruit & Nut chocolate bars have reacted with fury after the company changed the recipe for the first time in 90 years to include sultanas.
Cadbury, which has been in US ownership since 2010, said sultanas would offer more variety in addition to raisins and almonds, and said the results of extensive trials showed that consumers could not tell the difference.
But aficionados of the product, which first went on sale in the UK in 1926, complained on social media. Simon Barry tweeted:
I hate cadburys for changing the fruit and nut. Damn the American ownership running perfectly good sweets!
— Simon Barry (@bigsimo79) November 2, 2015
Tony Chambers, of Leicester, said: “Another way of using cheaper ingredients to rip the public off, no doubt.”
A Cadbury spokesperson said: “While raisins have actually traditionally been the fruit of Cadbury Fruit & Nut, sultanas have been brought into the fold to add more variation. It’s important we have a flexible supply of the dried fruit we use in our famous Fruit & Nut bars to both retain quality and ensure it’s still an affordable treat.”
The company said bars would contain either raisins or sultanas, but not both. It said that during trials 200 adults were unable to tell the difference between sultanas and raisins in the prototype bars.
Last autumn consumers were outraged to learn that Cadbury would no longer produce bagged chocolate coins, a popular stocking filler at Christmas. In January it changed the recipe of the beloved Creme Egg, sparking a similar outcry.
The new Fruit & Nut bars will be made at the Cadbury factory in Bournville, Birmingham, and will be on sale by the end of the month. The packaging is to remain exactly the same, as will the size and weight of the bars, so shoppers will have to check the ingredients to find out whether they are buying the old or new version.
Last year the company said it would stop making and selling chocolate bars in Britain containing more than 250 calories, in response to the government’s voluntary anti-obesity drive.
It said it would phase out “bar and a half” products such as Dairy Milk bar and a half and also consider altering the size of at least two other brands, which would be correspondingly reduced in price.
Cadbury was bought by the US giant Kraft in 2010 and is part of the US confectionery group Mondelēz International.