McVitie’s has shrunk the size of Jaffa Cakes in a ‘scandalous’ bid to cut costs

Jaffa Cakes are characterised as a circular sponge with an orange-flavoured jelly layer and set chocolate topping.

The unique sweet treats were introduced by McVitie and Price in the UK in 1927, named after Jaffa oranges, and have since become the subject of much controversy.

A lengthy debate about whether the snacks were cakes or biscuits divided the nation for years, but now, the categorised cakes have divided fans for their shrinking size.

The fruity treats are now one-tenth smaller than their original size, going from 5.5cm to 5cm across.

And it doesn’t stop there. The orange bump is also down from 4cm to just 3cm.

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Boxes of Jaffa Cakes are still sold in the same quantity of 10 per pack, but the cakes are now 11g, down from 12.2g.

The total weight measurement has vanished entirely from the packaging, so it’s much more difficult for shoppers to spot the difference – especially as the price has remained exactly the same.

One pack of “McVitie’s The Original Jaffa Cakes” retails for £1.25 in Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and Asda, despite the total offering of produce being just 110g down from 122g.

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Furious fans of the controversial biscuits took to social media to share their thoughts on the new dimensions.

One Twitter user wrote: “@McVities What the h**l have you done to the Jaffa Cakes, they look like kids size, absolutely scandalous”. Another tweeted: “I swear these Jaffa Cakes have halved in size.”

Others were angered by the fact that the biscuits had shrunk, but the boxes had not.

They wrote: “Hi, @jaffacakes can we all stop pretending that we still need the box the same size for almost half as many jaffa cakes? It’s just a waste of packaging.”

Experts claim that the change is down to “shrinkflation”, where shoppers get less product with no price cut.

McVitie’s has defended its decision, however, with owner Pladis admitting that it had cut the weight of Jaffa Cakes to hold the price while “input costs increase”.

It’s not the first time it’s happened to the popular sweet treats either. In 2017, the biscuit giant reduced the box size from 12 cakes to just 10, with the twin-packs also reduced from 24 to 20.

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