The filling in Arnott’s popular Monte Carlo biscuits appears to have nearly halved – and Aussie shoppers are outraged.
While promotional images released by Arnott’s show generous amounts of filling in each of their cookies, some of the products for sale appear very different.
A dissatisfied shopper sent a photo to 3AW presenter Jacqui Felgate of the Monte Carlo they had recently purchased at their local supermarket.
The filling was barely an inch wide and nowhere near the edge of the cookie.
The customer explained that the treat had already become a luxury as the cost of living skyrocketed, and now they may not be worth the $3 price tag.
The filling of Arnott’s Monte Carlo cookies appears to have nearly halved in recent years, despite the company insisting the recipe hasn’t changed
On the packaging, the raspberry jam-coated creme extends to the outside of their coconut honey cookies, but shoppers have noticed that this is rarely the case anymore
“What happened to Arnott’s Monte Carlos?” they wrote to Mrs. Felgate.
‘Monte Carlos has always been a favourite, but as you can imagine with the sharp rise in the cost of living, a package has unfortunately become a luxury expense.
“You can imagine our horror when we opened the package tonight with a long-awaited treat on it.”
The package of Monte Carlos biscuits features the raspberry jam-coated cream that extends all the way to the edge of the coconut and honey biscuits.
However, photos taken by regular customers seem to show that the cream barely fills an inch in the center.
Commentators were quick to say they’d seen this kind of “shrinkage inflation” before.
“It’s part of what’s called ‘shrinkage inflation,'” one person wrote.
Shrinkage inflation is when the cost of items rises while the products themselves shrink, and often occurs during times of economic hardship.
“All monte and no carlo,” said another.
“Like a nice Mars bar is the size of a Fantale. Nothing fun about it at all,” added a third.
This isn’t the first time Arnott’s has been caught in the cream, with 7News venture an experiment in June to see if it was a one off or the new standard.
While once the cream in Monte Carlos extended to the edge of the biscuit, shrinkage inflation seems to have hit the biscuit hard
7News did an experiment in June where they inspected 36 Monte Carlos, which found that all of them lacked cream, to the point where it was almost unnoticeable
After a Woolworths customer complained on social media, three packs of Monte Carlos were inspected to remove any doubt as to whether the product had been altered.
Each of the 36 cookies 7News tore into turned out to be so little filled that it would have been easy to miss them all put together.
Arnott’s has said it’s not unusual to see “slight differences in the final size and shape of the cookie.”
“At Arnott’s, we check every batch of biscuits to make sure they meet the high quality standards we’ve prided ourselves on for 158 years,” a spokesman told Daily Mail Australia.
‘Each pack is carefully weighed to ensure consistency, but in the same way that variations occur in home baking, there may be slight differences in the final size and shape of the cookie.
To ensure each pack meets overall weight requirements, the amount of cream in the cookie may vary slightly. Where the biscuit itself is lighter, the cream can be heavier – or vice versa.’
The company assured customers that their products had not changed and that the same amount of cream had been used consistently for more than half a century.
During the pandemic, Arnott’s released the recipe for several of their products, including the Monte Carlo, so that customers could make them at home.
For those who want to recreate the cookies as directed on the package, this seems like the only guaranteed way to do it.