This morning, I stumbled on a trending X post that was comparing two McVitie's Victoria biscuits, a 2024 one and a 2025 one. I honestly felt angry about it, not yelling anger but the exhausted type of anger where you know you should probably just go along with how things are instead of complaining, and it's probably downhill from here on.
Looking at the 2024 box it looks about right. It's a full box, the way that you expect the box to be packaged for how much you're going to pay for it. Then looking at the 2025 version it looks like they are playing tricks on us and th insult is they're making attempts on hiding it, which only makes me think they actually believe we're fools. Plastic dividers that take large amounts of space away from the centre of the box and all of these deep trays. All of that combined makes gives the impression that they are really trying to make it seem smaller without looking small.
It's really obvious if you look at it
My aunt bought one of those boxes two days ago for Christmas without knowing it, and when she opened it at home she burst out laughing.
They'll probably try to explain it by saying we had to pay higher prices for cocoa due to inflation so therefore we had to increase our prices, or the cost of transport has gone up, anything to justify looking for more profits or controlling profit margins.
Yes kids eat this too but we are all not children and can understand why a business might have to do what it has to do to survive, but could you just increase your price slightly and stop trying to hide it in the new packaging? The new packaging looks like you assume we are all stupid.
I remember when I was younger my mum used to buy a tin of biscuits. That one tin would last a week in our household. Now I eat them all in about two days because there isn't much in that tin. Maybe it's just because I am getting older now? Or are companies really using this tactic to their advantage and crossing their fingers that we won't compare it? At this point they know we know and will do it regardless.
The net weight is printed on the box, yes, that technically makes it legal but how many people and often do we actually checks grams before buying biscuits?
When you place these two trays side by side, the difference is very clear. The 2024 tray on the left looks packed with a wider variety of treats, and fits perfectly into the compartments with little wasted space.
Now take a look at the 2025 version on the right. The new tray design has massive plastic spacers and deep indentations that perfectly push the biscuits further apart. The objective is to create an illusion of a full box from the outside while still reducing the actual volume of food or in this case, biscuits inside. Usually a shift like this is branded as premium or modern, but th average shopper will notices this will definitely feel like they're paying premium for more and plastic, both of which will be discarded.
