Vintage Mars bar found in abandoned house exposes chocolate shrinkflation
A decades-old Mars bar discovered during a house clearance has gone viral after revealing just how much the iconic chocolate bar has shrunk over the decades.
Victoria Gordon, a cleaner who specialises in clearing hoarded properties, was astonished when she found a Mars bar dating back to 1991 in a home in Scunthorpe, England.
“It was nearly as big as my hand, which was kind of why I noticed it,” she told the BBC.
“I was like, ‘Wow, look at the size of that!’”
The 44-year-old business owner discovered the vintage bar weighed 62.5g, significantly more than the current standard Mars bar, which weighs 40g in the United Kingdom.
That’s 56% heavier than the UK’s modern version of the chocolate bar.
Some good news for chocolate lovers, a Mars bar weighs more seven grams more in New Zealand at 47g.
“While I do totally understand inflation, shrinkflation is a bit of a swizz as my mum would say,” Gordon told Creator Zine.
“The size difference was greater than I expected. Even though I knew it was big, I was surprised when I bought one to compare. It is a shame really.”
Gordon said one of the most rewarding aspects of clearing hoarded homes is uncovering unusual relics from the past.
“I find so many old and vintage things. I find it fascinating,” she said in a video posted on social media.
“I have had videos go viral before, the hoarder houses are always popular but I am surprised how this has taken off.”
The oversized Mars bar was found during a property cleanout and almost ended up in the rubbish before Gordon realised its significance.
“We were clearing out a hoarder’s house and everything we were rooting through was decades old.”
Mars says its products have undergone multiple changes over the decades. Photo / Getty Images
Images showing the 1991 Mars bar alongside a modern version have since gone viral online with the original video garnering over a million views.
However, Mars says its products have undergone multiple changes over the decades.
“Over the last 35 years, we have made a number of updates to our bar sizes and pack formats to reflect consumer demand, alongside considering wider external factors such as manufacturing costs and the price of cocoa,” a spokesperson told Metro UK.
Mars bars were first introduced in 1932 after being developed by Forrest Mars snr in a rented kitchen on the Slough Trading Estate in Berkshire, England.
Today the Slough factory remains in operation and continues to produce millions of chocolate bars each day following significant modernisation and investment in the site.
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