Only one in nine gave us the 25p answer
Tesco is temporarily slashing the price of Cadbury’s Freddo – the anthropomorphic chocolate frog invented in 1930 – to the historic price of 10p as part of its centenary celebrations.
Those of us of a certain age will remember this as the traditional cost of a Freddo, which remained stubbornly static from its introduction in the UK in 1994 until 2007. It may have been a mistake on Cadbury’s part to have kept the price fixed for so long, as it now can’t increase the cost of the treat without making headlines.
YouGov Omnibus asked Britons what they thought the current price of a Freddo bar was. The results reveal a horrendous lack of awareness. Only 11% gave the correct 25p RRP price set by Cadbury (although that’s not to say higher answers aren’t correct in some less scrupulous shops).
Overall, 14% of Brits gave a price lower than 25p, including 8% who said 20p (the price of a Freddo in 2011) and 2% who gave the classic cost of 10p.
More than a third of Brits (38%) gave a value higher than 25p, with the most commonly given options in this range being 30p at 10% (the price of a Freddo from March 2017 to March 2018 before Cadbury responded to popular outrage and reduced the price back to 25p), while another 7% said 50p.
A further 41% refrained from guessing and admitted that they didn’t know how much it cost in the first place.
A 2017 Buzzfeed study previously found that the price increases in Freddo bars have far outstripped inflation since 2000 – fully 200% at the time, whereas general inflation had only seen prices rise 42%.
While the famous frog is a cultural icon among those of a certain age, it’s far from the most beloved chocolatey treat in Britain.
YouGov Ratings shows that 53% of Britons have a positive opinion of Freddos, rising to 66% among Millennials. Even among this age group, however, this is only enough to secure a rank of 49th most popular confectionary – far behind the 87% that first placed Cadbury Buttons receive.
Photo: Alpha via Flickr
