Top of the Chocs – What is the UK’s Favourite Chocolate Bar?
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For many years, the UK’s best-selling chocolate bar has been the Dairy Milk. But – is it the nation’s favourite when it comes to taste?
Let’s take a look…
We polled a range of different age groups with one simple question: ‘What is your favourite chocolate bar?’
The results were surprising to say the least, with Mars being the unanimous winner across all age groups, whilst Dairy Milk became increasingly less popular with older generations.
In all age groups, men put Mars bars on top. However, women tended to prefer Galaxy – although put Mars a close second. Galaxy does not seem to be the chocolate bar of choice for men, with no age group voting it into in their ‘top 3’.
All areas of the UK voted Mars their favourite, other than Wales who did put the best-selling Dairy Milk on top.
Despite being voted the favourite by almost every age group in every region of the UK, Mars is just the 8th highest selling chocolate bar.
Dairy Milk received just 5.7% of the vote – they received 15.5% when Money Saving Expert ran a similar poll in 2011.
Sales of the product dropped by £31.2m from the years 2014 to 2015, and further drops are forecast too.
So what are the reasons behind the rise of Mars?
Mars UK Ltd have been busy establishing a stronghold in the market in the last few years.
In fact, whilst sales of Mars have actually decreased, other products owned by the firm have increased sales by 1.1-8.1% – that’s the likes of Maltesers, Snickers and Galaxy.
Are changes at Cadbury to blame for some of their decline?
In 2010, Kraft tookover Cadbury and vowed to stick to its traditional ways. However, there have been a few things that have upset fans in recent times…
In 2010, they closed the Cadbury factory in Somerdale, that gave work to 400 jobs. This was announced by Cadbury back in 2007, but it was hoped that Kraft would keep the factory open.
In 2012, a range of ‘Mix & Match’ products were released with varied success; Dairy Milk with Oreo, Dairy Milk with Daim, Ritz crackers…even Cadbury Philadelphia cheese.
In 2013, the corners of Dairy Milk chunks were ’rounded’ – whilst this is assumed to be a cost-cutting measure by most (by decreasing the weight of the chocolate bar overall), Kraft/Cadbury’s official line was that it was to enhance the taste.
Also in 2013, Bournville dark chocolates were dropped from ‘Heroes’ boxes in favour of Toblerone – another treat owned by Mondelez, who also own all of the products from the entire Cadbury mix & match range.
In 2014, it was decided that chocolate coins would no longer be made by the company – a popular Christmas stocking filler. The company blamed a decline in sales on cheaper alternatives being more readily available.
In 2015, the Creme Egg recipe was changed so that the shell was no longer made with Dairy Milk, instead opting for a more generic cocoa recipe. In the same year, Fruit n Nut bars made the switch from raisins to sultanas.
Can Cadbury rediscover their magic in the future? Only time will tell. As a side note, we wonder how much of a factor the chocolate in fridge debate influences the population’s chocolate choice?
