The filling inside Arnott’s popular Monte Carlo biscuits seems to have almost halved – and Aussie customers are fuming.
While promotional images released by Arnott’s show generous amounts of filling in each of their biscuits, some of the products on sale appear to be quite different.
One unhappy shopper sent a photo to 3AW host Jacqui Felgate of the Monte Carlos they’d recently bought at their local supermarket.
The filling was barely an inch wide, and nowhere near reaching the edge of the biscuit.
The customer explained the treat had already become a luxury as the cost of living skyrockets, and now they might not be worth the $3 price tag.
The filling of Arnott’s Monte Carlo biscuits seems to have almost halved in recent years, despite the company insisting that the recipe hasn’t changed
On the packaging the raspberry jam-coated cream extends to the outside of their coconut honey biscuits, but shoppers have noticed that this is rarely the case anymore
‘What happened to Arnott’s Monte Carlos?’ they wrote to Ms Felgate.
‘Monte Carlos have always been a favourite, but as you can image with the steep rise in the cost of living a packet has sadly become a luxury spend.
‘You can imagine our horror when we opened the packet this evening to a long-awaited treat to this.’.
The packaging of Monte Carlos biscuits show the raspberry jam-coated cream extending right out to the rim of the coconut and honey biscuits.
However, photos taken by everyday customers seem to show the cream barely filling an inch in the middle.
Commenters were quick to mention they’d seen this type of ‘shrinkflation’ before.
‘It’s part of what’s called “shrinkflation”,’ one person wrote.
Shrinkflation is when the cost of items increases while the products themselves decrease in size, and is common during times of economic trouble.
‘All monte and no carlo,’ another said.
‘Like a fun-size Mars bar is the size of a Fantale. Nothing fun about it at all,’ a third added.
This isn’t the first time Arnott’s has been found skimping on the cream, with 7News undertaking an experiment in June to see if it was a one-off or the new standard.
Whereas once the cream inside Monte Carlos used to extend to the rim of the biscuit, shrinkflation seems to have hit the cookie hard
7News did an experiment in June where they inspected 36 Monte Carlo’s which showed that every single one was lacking on the cream, to the point where it was almost unnoticeable
After a Woolworths shopper complained on social media, three packets of Monte Carlos were inspected to eliminate any doubt as to whether the product had changed.
Every single one of the 36 biscuits that 7News tore into were found to be so lacking on filling that it would have been easy to miss it all together.
At the time, Arnott’s responded and said it was not unusual to see ‘slight differences in the final biscuit size and shape’.
‘At Arnott’s, we monitor every batch of biscuits to ensure they meet the high-quality standards that we have prided ourselves on for 158 years,’ a spokesperson told 7.
‘Each pack is carefully weighed to ensure consistency, but in the same way that variations occur when baking at home, there may be slight differences in the final biscuit size and shape.
‘To ensure that each pack meets the overall weight requirements, the amount of cream included in the biscuit can vary slightly. In instances where the biscuit itself is lighter, the cream may be heavier – or vice versa.’
The company assured shoppers their products had not changed, and that the same amount of cream had been consistently used for over half a century.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Arnott’s to confirm if this is still the case.
During the pandemic, Arnott’s released the recipe for several of their products, including the Monte Carlo, so customers could be made at home.
For those wanting to recreate the biscuits as shown on the packaging, it seems to be the only guaranteed way to do so.
