Toffee Crisp and Blue Riband can’t be called chocolates any more as Nestle changes recipes | UK | News
Nestle has made a major production change on two of its most popular products; This means they can no longer be called chocolate. Toffee Crisp and Blue Riband are no longer classified as chocolate after reformulations pushed them below the threshold. In the UK, for a product to be labeled as milk chocolate it must have at least 20% cocoa solids and 20% milk solids.
Due to the rising cost of ingredients, Nestle reformulated the two products but insisted they had been “carefully developed and sensory tested.” Toffee Crisp and Blue Riband will now be described as “covered in a smooth milk chocolate flavor coating” rather than being coated in milk chocolate. It was also stated that the company has no plans to change the recipes of other chocolate products.
A Nestle spokesman said the business had “seen significant increases in the cost of cocoa in recent years, making our products much more expensive to produce. We continue to become more efficient and offset rising costs where possible.”
Rising prices for both cocoa and butter have led some food giants to change their recipes to use more affordable ingredients, as well as reduce portion sizes.
Earlier this year, the recipes for McVitie’s Penguin and Club bars were also changed. Instead of a full chocolate layer, the bars now feature what the company calls a “cocoa mass chocolate flavor coating”; It’s a small but important distinction that has forced McVitie’s to relabel packaging and advertising across its entire product line.
This is also a response to rising cocoa costs, which have reached record levels on the world market.
Crops in West Africa, where about 70% of the world’s cocoa is grown, have been hit by extreme weather, floods and disease.
The two largest producers, Ghana and Ivory Coast, have suffered consecutive bad harvests. Prices on the London Cocoa Futures market rose from around £2,200 per tonne in spring 2023 to over £10,000 by April 2025.
This global shortage has left manufacturers in a difficult situation. With chocolate prices more than doubling, McVitie’s parent company Pladis opted to reformulate the price of its Penguin bars rather than raise them beyond the reach of everyday shoppers.
