Cadbury Old Gold Dark Chocolate Shonky

SpotAShonky
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I have been eating Cadbury Old Gold Rum N Raisin Dark Chocolate for quite a while but when I opened a new block yesterday, it appeared to be much lighter in colour and had a different taste, so I have just read the back of an unopened block.

“Dark Chocolate 82%, Raisins 17%, Rum 1%.”

“Dark Chocolate contains cocoa solids 37%.”

I am sure that Cadbury Old Gold used to be 70% cocoa solids.

According to this article, dark chocolate contains between 50% and 90% cocoa solids so the Cadbury product does not qualify as dark chocolate at all.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/food-features/dark-chocolate/#:~:text=Dark%20chocolate%20contains%2050-90,in%20some%20form%2C%20and%20sugar.

This article regarding the best and worst brands of dark chocolate lists Cadbury Old Gold as " * Cadbury Old Gold
It says dark chocolate on the label, but it is a dairy milk – with a high sugar content."

Cadbury’s Australian website lists the cocoa content for all varieties of Old Gold with the sole exception of Rum N Raisin. The others range between 40% and 45%.

Most disappointed.

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Old Gold was in the past 50%, the 70, 75 percenters are a not the standard Old Gold. Cadbury have fiddled previously to get best dollar for least cost. Palm Oil in that glass and a half.

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Most of the Old Gold chocolate range doesn’t contain vegetable (potentially palm) oil. The only one that does is (apologies to @fred123 in advance) Old Gold Dark Chocolate Old Jamaica Rum N Raisin. And in relation to Cadbury’s use of palm oil, they indicate that their chocolate doesn’t contain palm oil, but some of the filled chocolates contain palm oil in the fill.

Old Gold had a limited number of different types when I grew up (rum and raisin and plain from memory)…but more recently it has expanded its range possibly to cash in on the dark chocolate ‘health’ craze.

I also can’t find any information that Cadbury’s carries out dutching on its dark chocolates. It appears that it does for its packaged Cadbury Bournville Coco.

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They altered their recipe but there was a backlash so they removed it. It wasn’t that they didn’t attempt it.

One other variety I remember was the Almond one from my younger days.

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They still have the roast almond one.

https://shop.coles.com.au/a/earlville/everything/search/old%20gold%20chocolate?pageNumber=1

They also have the 300gm blocks of Rum N Raisin for the same price as the 180gm blocks.

Perhaps they deserve a Platinum Shonky.

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Fred - the link you posted shows Rum N Raisin as 37% cocoa solids. I checked Lindt dark chocolate varieties - they list 47% minimum cocoa solids in the general/variety range: this increases to a 70 - 95% cocoa range!
I used to buy Cadbury R & R, but discovered Lindt… now I buy bars when at (super) special prices & keep them in the freezer - they thaw quite quickly.

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Try one of the Lindt varieties, pretty sure they are better

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I was buying the Lindt Excellence Chilli blocks but stopped eating chocolate for quite a while.

People are sceptical regarding chocolate with chilli but it is delicious.

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A Choice test, only 6 years old and recipes and products sometimes change for the better or worse over time, and all are not included. Yet the test might still be interesting in the context of the topic, especially the criteria as well as the divergent views among the ‘panelists’.

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We buy Lindt or Freys 90/85% cocoa if we buy dark chocolate. Funny enough we bought Old Gold 70% for a change as it was half price at Woollies this week. Its sugar content is similar to Lindt 70% and we will be using it to make hot chocolates (1/2 to 1 piece in a cup of milk microwaved for 2 minutes).

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I no longer buy ANY Cadbury chocolate. Even the dark chocolate is so sweet it is no longer palatable. I am a diabetic so I have to limit my chocolate intake. I have 2 squares of Lindt 85% dark chocolate and I find that that is enough to satisfy my craving.

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3 posts were merged into an existing topic: Food certification discussion

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I wish to upgrade my Shonky nomination of Cadbury Old Gold Dark Chocolate to include all Cadbury block chocolates.

As if pricing their Rum N Raisin 180gm blocks at the same price as their 300gm blocks at $5.00 each is not shonky enough, then pricing their Dairy Milk 180gm and 350gm blocks at $5.00 each is even more shonky.

So consumers can get almost double the amount of product for no extra cost with the 350gm block, or conversely, anyone silly enough to buy the 180gm blocks when they are not on special is paying virtually double the price per 100gm.

Whilst Coles and Woollies regularly have the 180gm blocks on special, often at half price, some people are obviously paying top price in between specials.

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If puzzling and anomalous pricing decisions are going to be included as shonkys the list of products is going to be very long indeed.

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We have bought this Cadbury rum and raisin chocolate for winter warming for a decade. This year it had no taste at all, so we tried the cherry ripe and it had no taste at all either. Whatever they have done they have permanently lost 2 long term customers.

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About 8yrs ago, Cadbury changed the recipe of all Easter “Red Tulip” eggs (large and small, including Humpty Dumpties) from the rich taste it had used for approximately 1000 years (30-40 years)…
… to a new, cheaper-tasting, sweet style that I find utterly loathsome.

At the time, I was about as annoyed as a 35 year old chocolate eating adult male could reasonably be (in public), commenting mildly on it at the water cooler with my colleagues each morning. But deep down, I put aside my urge to torch parked cars, and wrote Cadbury a strongly worded email instead…

To their credit, they bothered to answer. To their detriment, their answer was rubbish.

They told me (in writing) that the entire Red Tulip recipe had needed to be changed due to the “fragility” of the eggs when being transported. Including mind you, those small solid eggs. You know, the little ones capable of leaving a real bruise when pegged at your siblings in the 1980s.

They then gave me a small discount on my next order of their disgusting new easter sludge.

But let’s consider that reply again for a moment. Because either I’m stupid, or they’re stupid - it cannot be both:

  1. They would sooner fundamentally diminish their own iconic chocolate product - to suit logistics. Than adapt logistics - to maintain their iconic chocolate product.

Or.

  1. They lied.

Let’s be clear, subtle shifts in chocolate flavour are clear frontrunners in any list of most trivial first-world problems. Especially in this world of pandemics and creeping authoritarianism.

But despite being a devout atheist, each Easter I still find myself praying for the Resurrection…
…of that original Red Tulip chocolate flavour.

And somewhere at Cadbury HQ, there’s a corporate executive feeling smug about himself because of his achievements with the Red Tulip line. Help me track him down, people.

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Yep. Thanks for naming it. There might be more significant problems.
Broken promises by the big chocolate manufacturers, more significant than a change of recipe, include ongoing cocoa production travesties:

What’s your impact in this world of interdependence?
Could you face a tour of this situation with your children and explaining your role in it to them?

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Thank you for those links. I was always under the impression that at least the core cocoa in Cadbury chocolate is now fair trade, but I guess I was seeing what I wanted to see. I’ll avoid them more from now on

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Used to love me some Old Gold Rum’n’Rasin. Last couple of batches I tried had no flavour though. Cadbury used to be one of the better chocolates on offer, but we stick with Whittakers now. Can live without the Old Gold. Even Cadbury’s Dream white chocolate tastes wrong now. No white choc flavours at all. Might as well be munching on a mouth full of icing sugar. Getting back to the Old Gold Rum’nRaisin, We often find it at Woolies in two sizes. The regular block and the much larger looking block, and usually both sold for the same price, but with no price tag to see on the larger size so you won’t mind being ripped off by getting the smaller block. If you ask someone who works there they’ll find out the price for you though.

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I now never buy anything made by Cadbury. They changed their recipe a few years ago and thought no-one would notice. All of their chocolate is now so sweet I cannot tolerate it. I now only buy Lindt 70 or 85 percent dark chocolate or if I am in Aldi (rarely, because they never have what I want) I will by their dark chocolate. I guess Cadbury have weighed up the financials and decided they are prepared to lose some market share while cheapening their product.

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