Nestlé Toffee Crisp and Blue Riband become latest to lose chocolate status

Classic Nestlé confectionery lines, Toffee Crisp, and Blue Riband, have become the latest in the UK that can no longer be called chocolate due to the company cutting levels of cocoa in these well-known series, writes Neill Barston.

In Britain, standards governing the sector require ranges to have at least 20% cocoa solids to be declared as a chocolate product – but the prices of the key crop have prompted the manufacturer, like a number of others, to use alternative ingredients.

The company reportedly claimed that the move was necessary due to cocoa prices, and manufacturing prices having gone up, and was delivered following sensory testing.  However, as Confectionery Production has reported, the cost of cocoa at least, has gone down in the past three months, to almost half its $12,000 a tonne peak experienced at the start of 2025.

Consequently, social media users were quick to express their dismay at the chocolate reduction move, which has come in for criticism as a downgrading of the product, with many expressing a view that they would no longer buy the series of bars.

One X user, Mark Hook, wrote: “Toffee Crisp is essentially now pretty much reduced to wafers and vegetable fat with flavourings. Yummy., Ironic in Switzerland it has to be 100% coco butter and not veg fats by Swiss law.”

Meanwhile, ‘Kathryn H’ added: “Nestle, are you serious? Who wants a lower quality product? Disgraceful, you will sell less product if that is your aim and lose custom. Great strategy.

Another wrote: “Price goes up, portion size goes down, chocolate content is now ‘flavouring’. Anyone else think our pants are being pulled down – again,” which with hundreds of other comments expressing concern at the product reformulation that had not been communicated by the business.

The move by the company has essentially meant that it can now only be labelled as being chocolate flavour. 

This comes in the wake of recent similar high profile decisions by other manufacturers in the region, including McVities, which removed chocolate content from its popular Penguin and Club bar series. This has notably altered its flavour and evoked similar levels of concerns from shoppers who had long associated the brands with being chocolate products.