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Cadbury makes major change to Fudge bars – and customers are fuming

Cadbury makes major change to Fudge bars – and customers are fuming

The Sun8 hours ago

CADBURY has made a major change to Fudge bars and customers are fuming.
The chocolate giant has once again reduced the size of its Fudge mulitpack, with customers now getting four bars instead of five.
Packs of four are still being sold for £1.40, even though bigger packets were sold for the same price a few month prior
Cadbury has faced backlash from customers, especially parents who put the treat in their children's lunch box.
Leaving a review on Tesco's website, one angry parent branded it " shrinkflation in action".
"Apparently these are no longer meant to go in kids lunchboxes any more because there are 5 days in the school week, not 4."
They added: "The price hasn't changed though ."
While another upset customer asked: "When will it stop? Not a happy customer! Same goes for fudge bars."
And a third shopper said: "Same price, fewer bars. Not good."
Cadbury told The Sun changes to product sizes is a "last resort" for the business, blaming "higher input costs" for the change.
They said: "This means that our products continue to be much more expensive to make and while we have absorbed these costs where possible, we still face considerable challenges."
It is not the first time Cadbury has reduced the size of its chocolate products.
We've outdone ourselves with this one' say Cadbury Ireland as they reveal new limited edition bar 'coming soon
Cadbury reduced packs of Freddos from five to four and Cadbury Dairy Milk multipacks were cut from nine bars to seven.
More recently, the brand slashed the size of it's Dairy Milk Little Bars multipacks by a third.
Packs of four are being sold for £1.40, even though packs of six cost the same last month.
MORE CADBURY NEWS
The confectionery giant has recently rolled out a number of new flavours for customers to enjoy.
That includes new Cadbury Dairy Milk Summer Edition bars such as the Iced Latte flavour.
The choc is wrapped in cold-activated packaging that transforms in the fridge.
A new limited edition Twirl bar has also been rolled out across stores.
The Twirl White Dipped is coated in white chocolate and customers are saying it reminds them of the discontinued Flake Snow.
How to save money on chocolate
We all love a bit of chocolate from now and then, but you don't have to break the bank buying your favourite bar.
Consumer reporter Sam Walker reveals how to cut costs...
Go own brand - if you're not too fussed about flavour and just want to supplant your chocolate cravings, you'll save by going for the supermarket's own brand bars.
Shop around - if you've spotted your favourite variety at the supermarket, make sure you check if it's cheaper elsewhere.
Websites like Trolley.co.uk let you compare prices on products across all the major chains to see if you're getting the best deal.
Look out for yellow stickers - supermarket staff put yellow, and sometimes orange and red, stickers on to products to show they've been reduced.
They usually do this if the product is coming to the end of its best-before date or the packaging is slightly damaged.
Buy bigger bars - most of the time, but not always, chocolate is cheaper per 100g the larger the bar.
So if you've got the appetite, and you were going to buy a hefty amount of chocolate anyway, you might as well go bigger.

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Britain has just spent £1bn on new F-35s. Were we right to do so?
Britain has just spent £1bn on new F-35s. Were we right to do so?

Telegraph

time23 minutes ago

  • Telegraph

Britain has just spent £1bn on new F-35s. Were we right to do so?

For a Labour government keen to showcase its defence credentials to the world – and particularly Donald Trump – it was the perfect party piece. Ahead of this week's Nato summit in the Hague, Sir Keir Starmer announced the purchase of 12 new F-35A fighter jets, ordered from the United States at a cost of nearly £1 billion. Armed with state-of-the art technology and radar jammers, the so-called 'flying computer' can operate almost invisible to enemy eyes: as its maker Lockheed Martin boasts, 'it is built to conduct missions others can't'. More importantly, it can carry bombs that others can't. The F-35A will enable Britain to carry US B61s – tactical nuclear weapons that could be deployed on a battlefield in the event of a war with Russia. The idea is to widen Britain's range of nuclear response options, which currently rest only in the much bigger strategic missiles carried on its Trident submarine fleet. In nuclear weapons terms, that is the difference between a scalpel and a sledgehammer – and while the purchase has horrified disarmament campaigners, Sir Keir insists it is a necessary evil. 'In an era of radical uncertainty, we can no longer take peace for granted,' he declared. What has also not been taken for granted, however, is the F-35's complete reliability. For despite being billed as America's foremost combat jet, critics say it has suffered more than its fair share of glitches during its 19-year flying history. In 2019, the military magazine Defense News revealed that Pentagon chiefs had identified precisely 857 'deficiencies' in the aircraft's design, including seven that were potentially 'critical'. Most have since been dealt with, but to this day the F-35 programme remains dogged by technical hitches and concerns about reliability and maintenance. Britain has been a major customer of the F-35s, and already owns 48 F-35Bs – a variation on the F-35A that also has vertical take-off and landing capabilities, making it suitable for use on aircraft carriers. Worldwide, however, at least a dozen F-35s have been involved in accidents or serious technical failures since 2018. Sometimes the cause has been malfunctioning headsets or software failures; on other occasions pilots have simply struggled with the complex technology. In January, an F-35A fighter jet crashed during a training session at an Air Force base in Alaska after an in-flight malfunction, forcing the pilot to eject. Three years ago, a South Korean Air Force F-35A made a belly landing after a bird strike and a landing gear malfunction. Just this week, it was revealed that a British F-35B serving with an aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean has been stranded on the Indian mainland for more than 10 days after monsoon rains forced it to make an emergency landing. A technical issue with the craft was reportedly identified after it landed, and a British Merlin helicopter from the aircraft carrier flew technicians in to try to fix the suspected hydraulic failure. But like a fancy sports car that can only be repaired by authorised dealers, the F-35 was deemed in need of a team of specialists from the UK. Meanwhile, Royal Navy chiefs are said to have turned down an offer by the Indians to move the jet out of the rain and into a hangar, for fear they might take a sneaky peak at its sensitive technologies. Problems with software updates have meant that hundreds of the planes have at times lain in hangars in the US, hindering ongoing roll-out programmes to Europe's other Nato players. Like much high-tech Pentagon equipment – especially anything nuclear-capable – the US military is cagey about the exact nature of the issues. But outsiders have not been shy in airing criticisms, among them aviation expert Bill Sweetman, a Hampshire-born former editor for Janes (a global open-source intelligence company), who now lives in the US. While Lockheed Martin hails its product as 'stealthy, speedy and the future of air dominance across the world,' Sweetman is rather less complimentary. In a book published last year, detailing the programme's problems and vast cost overruns, he famously dubbed the F-35 a ' trillion-dollar trainwreck '. Others – including a former acting defence secretary under Trump – have been equally damning, dismissing it as a 'rathole' and 'f----d up.' Sweetman paints a picture of a vast, outdated flight development programme, which began in the late 1990s when computer technology was far less developed than it is now, and has been playing catch-up ever since. As a result, he argues, the F-35 is rather like a clunky late-1990s laptop onto which lots of additional hard-drives and software have had to be awkwardly grafted. 'Operating a stealth aircraft [one designed to be invisible to radar] is always a unique challenge, in that you are also trying to minimise all the electronic signals that the plane might emit,' he says. 'But a big problem has been the design of the electronics, as how one did these things 25 years ago is very different to how they might be done today. By the late 2010s, for example, they were already running out of memory for the plane's computers, so they had to install first one new computer control system, and then another. That's very complicated and also affects the jet's avionics – how it flies. It might have been better to have had a design that kept the avionics separate from the control systems.' Lockheed Martin disputes that assessment, and compares the updates to 'how an iPhone receives a software update on a base operating system'. John Neilson, the firm's director of international media and corporate affairs, says: 'We continue to release iterations of software that will further enhance combat capabilities, operational effectiveness and readiness of the aircraft.' More than 1,000 F-35s have already been produced, several hundred of which are already in use by Nato allies or due for delivery in coming years. Sweetman believes that the programme, like many large-scale defence contracts, ended up being simply too big to abandon, and that 'every failed fix made matters worse'. Last year, members of the United States House Committee on Armed Services even argued for scaling back procurement of the planes until the problems were ironed out for good. The programme, however, is already seriously behind schedule, making matters even worse. 'They were all supposed to be delivered before 2030,' Sweetman says. 'Now that target is more like 2054.' Greg Bagwell, a retired air marshal and distinguished fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, says the issues extend beyond 'teething problems'. 'The F-35 is a big and long programme, with some way yet still to go,' he says. 'And while you can excuse any teething problems… there are clearly issues.' Bagwell likens the F-35 to a thoroughbred racehorse or Formula One racing car, arguing that because of its high-performance capabilities, it was always likely to suffer occasional technical hiccups. 'But if you look at the total number of flying hours that have already been put in, the number of serious issues has been pretty low,' he adds. The plane was in action over Iran recently during the US-Israeli bombing raids, with no performance issues or combat losses. 'There is some truth to the criticisms of people like Bill Sweetman, but based on exercises and operations we've seen so far, the F-35 is well above anything else we have,' says Bagwell. Other defenders of the plane, which took part in its first combat missions against Isis in Iraq in 2019, agree that despite its problems, it is still currently peerless. Its 360-degree vision gives pilots unrivalled situational awareness, and it also has formidable electronic warfare capabilities that can overwhelm enemy air defences. As one writer put it in an article last year for the magazine European Security & Defence: 'If the task is to go and drop a pair of small precision-guided missiles through someone's roof, and return home safely – probably undetected, and certainly unmolested – then there is no better aircraft to achieve that than an F-35.' Defence analysts also point out that glitches are routine with any high-performance aircraft, and that most of the more serious ones with the F-35 – such as problems with cockpit pressure leading to pilots suffering sinus pain – have now been ironed out. The debate over the F-35s' effectiveness, however, comes amid a wider discussion about whether the military should continue investing in manned aircraft and ' Top Gun ' pilots at all. With drones now effectively dominating the battlefield in Ukraine, many wonder if the West would be better off focusing purely on unmanned planes, controlled in turn by AI technology. Among those who believe so is American entrepreneur Elon Musk, who made his feelings known on social media last year when posting a video of a drone swarm. 'Meanwhile, some idiots are still building manned fighter jets like the F-35,' he said, adding: 'Crewed fighter jets are an inefficient way to extend the range of missiles or drop bombs. A reusable drone can do so without all the overhead of a human pilot.' Even Sweetman, however, points out that no drones currently have anything like the speed, range or weapons-carrying ability that a fighter jet has. And as the US bombing raid on Iran's nuclear facilities proved earlier this week, manned flights still have their uses. In an interview with The Telegraph last year, Paul Livingston, the chief executive of Lockheed Martin's UK arm, insisted the F-35's capabilities were still 'beyond anything else out there'. 'Before the F-35, if I was going to fly a mission into a peer nation's territory to strike against a well-protected target, I would need a minimum of 16 aircraft,' he said. 'You would have jamming aircraft – which, by the way, says, 'Hello, we're coming' – then you'd send in suppression of enemy air defence aircraft, because you'd have to kill the radars off, then you'd send fast strike aircraft in. 'I can now do that same mission with four F-35s and no support. And they don't need protection afterwards, because they can fight their way out.'

ONS secures extra cash to restore confidence in UK's economic statistics
ONS secures extra cash to restore confidence in UK's economic statistics

Sky News

time24 minutes ago

  • Sky News

ONS secures extra cash to restore confidence in UK's economic statistics

Why you can trust Sky News A further £10m is to be spent on fixing shortfalls in the core numbers produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) amid a continuing lack of confidence in their accuracy. The body is tasked with producing official figures covering key areas of the economy and societal trends. It has faced particular criticism over the quality of its Labour Force Survey (LFS) - used to calculate employment figures. The Bank of England, which needs accurate readings for its rate-setting committee to make informed judgements, is among institutions to have expressed frustration with the numbers since the COVID pandemic. The problems at the ONS are not all financial. The Newport-based body's challenges include in areas such as the LFS. It hopes to have made improvements by spring next year. That will be of little comfort to the Bank which needs to know how much inflationary pressure is lingering in the jobs market, through things like wage growth, as it sets interest rates. The ONS confirmed that plans were being enacted to "urgently" improve the quality of its work in two areas - that covering the economy and population and the other its household and business data. The extra cash, to be spent over two years, is to fund the recruitment of up to 150 more economic data specialists, it said in a statement. The ONS also said that the UK Statistics Authority and Cabinet Office had agreed with a recommendation to temporarily separate the role of national statistician from that of ONS permanent secretary. This was in order to provide a greater focus on improving the quality of its core statistics. The ONS did not rule out revisions to past data in the months ahead. Acting director general for economic statistics, Grant Fitzner, said: "The ONS's Plan for Economic Statistics aims to restore confidence and improve the quality of our core statistics. "It is open about where things stand today and where we need to do better - and forms a crucial part of our response to the recent Office for Statistics Regulation review into economic statistics. "The Survey Improvement and Enhancement Plan does the same for our household and business surveys."

Moonpig boss unexpectedly steps down
Moonpig boss unexpectedly steps down

Times

time26 minutes ago

  • Times

Moonpig boss unexpectedly steps down

The chief executive of Moonpig, the online greetings cards business, has stepped down after seven years, catching the City and his leadership team unawares. The company's share price dropped by 9 per cent on Thursday as the market digested the unexpected news of Nickyl Raithatha's departure, which was delivered alongside the annual results. Raithatha will serve out his 12-month notice period to ensure a smooth transition. 'It has been a great time in a business that I love and I want to leave on a high,' he said. 'I feel like I'll be able to do that with good momentum, good trading and a rock solid team. I'll miss it, but it should be a really strong platform for someone to come in and build on.' The card retailer's reported profit before tax dropped 93 per cent to £3 million because of a £56.7 million charge representing a loss in value for its experiences division. It bought the Buyagift and Red Letter Days businesses from Otium Capital for £124 million in 2022 to cash in on what it saw as a shift from physical gifts towards experiences such as afternoon tea at Harrods or a day driving supercars on the Top Gear test track. The unit, which marked the company's first acquisition since its £1.2 billion IPO in 2021, struggled as lower consumer confidence and economic challenges pushed down spending on gifts. The company's ebitda earnings were £96.8 million, up 1.3 per cent, slightly above analyst expectations of £94 million. Its revenue of £350 million, up 2.6 per cent from the year before, was at the bottom end of the guidance, due to a slower second half with consumers less willing to pay for extras, such as choosing a larger card or adding a more expensive gift. After the end of the financial year, sales growth bounced back with Moonpig's strongest Father's Day yet, the company said. • Moonpig launches AI-driven handwriting tool 'There's a lot of uncertainty in the world so people are holding back,' Raithatha said. 'The good news for us is that we have managed to start growing gifting meaningfully, despite that consumer pullback, which we're really proud of internally.' Moonpig was founded in 2000 by Nick Jenkins, a former commodity trader who named his company after his school nickname. Raithatha launched Moonpig on to the London stock market during the pandemic, one of a clutch of companies that went public in 2021, at a price of 350p with a £1.2 billion valuation, only to see its share price plummet when the lockdowns ended. It has never quite recovered. On Thursday, the shares retreated another 22½p, or 9.2 per cent, to close at 221p. Analysts at Peel Hunt described Raithatha's departure as 'more of an eyebrow raise than a shock. Nickyl has been an impressive figurehead and Moonpig has progressed well under his leadership'. RBC said: 'Whilst the resignation of Raithatha will be a key talking point, we focus on the business's performance. The group has delivered a 6 per cent adjusted PBT [profit before tax] beat in 2025, with growth at the core Moonpig brand now back in double-digit growth.' Reflecting on his tenure, Raithatha said: 'If you live and die by share price, you can become very depressed very quickly. I look back at the last seven years and we have quadrupled revenues, we have quintupled profits, the workforce is six times bigger and we have entered new countries. 'The fact that we've got 12 million customers, they're more loyal, they're more engaged. It means the strategy has worked pretty consistently over that time. The IPO was obviously a pretty big highlight which put Moonpig on the map. 'We've obviously come off the highs from a share price perspective. But the business is bigger, more profitable and faster growing than it was at the IPO. From our perspective we're delivering for customers and that should translate to delivering for shareholders.' On Thursday morning when Nickyl Raithatha explained to Moonpig staff in a company 'all-hands meeting' that he was leaving, they were taken aback by the news. His leadership team are, by all accounts, still processing it. Heart emojis filled the screen on the video call as staff expressed digitly that they were genuinely sorry to see him go. After celebrating Raithatha's seven-year 'Mooniversary', as it is cloyingly called internally, with a Moonpig card, he felt it was time to explore pastures new. Those who know him are not surprised. At just 42, the young chief is extremely ambitious and was unlikely to be celebrating Mooniversaries for the rest of his life. His parents were among the Ugandan Indians forced to flee Idi Amin's regime in 1972. Raithatha grew up helping in his father's pharmacy. After a degree at Cambridge, he went on to cut his teeth at Goldman Sachs and then, while the financial crisis took hold, left to do an MBA at Harvard. This planted the seed of working in business, which is where his career swerved away from the more staid world of banking, into tech and start-ups. He founded Finery, a fashion retail business, which he sold to Touker Suleyman of Dragons' Den. Moonpig was not an obvious next step and growing the business has not been straightforward. The share price has not kept pace with the growth of the company and been a constant disappointment to investors. However, he has gained a lot of experience along the way and quite a network: his chairwoman is Kate Swann, the former boss of WH Smith. While he has not decided what he wants to do next, it will be related to the worlds of tech and digital. 'I'm still early in my career, I've got plenty of time and capacity to take on new challenges and try new things,' he said. In this rapidly accelerating era of AI there is no shortage of tech excitement in the business world. No doubt the headhunters are already knocking. And it'll be the end of people singing 'Mooooooonpig dot com' at him.

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