Toblerone

08 November 2016

A Toblerone bar has the enviable position of being a luxury product for a lot of people; velvety-smooth with chewy sweetness on the tongue, idiosyncratic in design, and with a long, long history.

There’s the expectation that, once one figures out how to open the box, breaking off a piece of nougat-speckled chocolate will be difficult. The ever-present fear of broken teeth, the danger inherent in inexpertly wielded knives whilst attempting block separation; it’s all part of a process distinct from eating any other chocolate.

But tradition is a powerful thing.

As the cost of production and ingredients inevitably increases, and the pack size reduction is touted, spurious, as bringing health benefits, companies invent ways to cut corners, mainly by decreasing pack size whilst maintaining the amount the customer pays. In reducing the manufacturing costs the logical choice would have been to reduce the length of the bars. Competing ‘staple’ bars have already set a precedent.

But no. The company looks to have removed every other peak from the bars. The result is frankly ridiculous.

Its obvious whoever signed off on it had no idea of the repercussions. Premium products surely mandate price increases?

If, for instance, the Coca-Cola company decided to alter the recipe there’d be uproar. Ok, that’s a bad example; whilst the Toblerone recipe may not have been touched, generations of gift-givers and receivers have expectations of CONTINUITY.

Tradition, continuity, expectation; killed at a stroke.

I’m not impressed. I’ll be interested to see whether there’s an embarrassed climb-down in the near future, or whether the brand’ll simply disappear - rationalised out of existence by the parent company as a product of a bygone age.

Toblerone: 1908-?