Selection boxes are so cheap now

[kookycad]

Does anybody remember his selections boxes (and advent calendars, Easter eggs for that matter) used to be quite expensive?

They're so cheap now and we're drowning in them already. My two small dcs have received no-less than six each yesterday (Xmas with friends and a nursery event).

I think it's great that they're more accessible for people to afford and are an easy present for kids, but the sheer amount of chocolate that kids expect they're going to eat is shocking.

I've noticed this.

It sort of feels more excessive than special now. Also the plastic isn't good.

@Shepherdspieisminging Yes! I used to think Thornton's was v expensive but now it's 3 for 2 in Tesco.

Chocolate definitely isn't as good now either.

Selection boxes used to be full of full sized bars though. Now they’re full of very small versions of the most basic bars.

We’re getring what we pay for I suspect.

The quality of the chocolate is astonishingly low though, and all that packaging, indecent.

I've just bought 20 small ones in Home Bargains for 89p
Not for me I hasten to add.

I wish they still did the ones from when we were kids.
I'd rather pay more and have decent sized bars.
Ours always featured a Lion bar.

And they had netting

Wrap them up and give them to a charity for homeless people if you have too many, that’s what I have done . I also bought some and wrapped them , and some socks too.
It makes me feel a bit better about the huge order I put in at M&S!

But pp are correct - the bars are smaller, and the chocolate is cheaper. Cadbury’s has not been the same since Kraft bought it .......greasy and cheap....palm oil perhaps?

When I was a kid they were cardboard and had games on the back. You would get a dice and plastic counters in the box for the game.

I was thinking about this earlier! Especially easter eggs in remember they were £5/6 an egg and 2 full sized bars. The thing was back then they cost more than the £1 now so nobody used to buy them just to eat whenever we all just looked forward to our egg at easter. Must confess now there £1 i have often eat many before easter even comes round the packaging has got better with eggs though leas plastic than back in the day.
However selection boxes i was quite horrified at them tbh. I bought a cadburys stocking one and the flipping bottom of the pack fell apart.... realised that the bars were tiny and the plastic holding it together (badly) was in excess. They have got alot cheaper though but quality is dwindling xx

The quality is shite though!

Also I remember them not being all choc! There was a mix of choc, toffee, jellies & candies when I was little old gimmer

If your kids ok with it or you think they wouldn't notice your local food bank would be grateful for a donation.

Smaller and disgusting chocolate that's why. They might be giving them away in a few years

I think I would pay handsomely for a selection box made with the original recipes and full sized bars, a proper treat.

Selection boxes were such a treat when my brother and I were small. My parents used to go Christmas shopping, we would buy three selection boxes when we arrived, put two in the car and then Dad used to take us to see Santa and we would give him the other selection box.

They were full size and a lovely treat.

It's because they're full of palm oil. Bought some lovely chocolate lollipops from hotel Chocolat which cost £2 for a lot less chocolate than you'd get in a selection box but I think the chocolate tastes so much nicer and is more ethical.

It's also happened to Quality Street tins etc. We used to get excited about the five pound, ie 2.27 kilo tin of QS that we'd get at Christmas. It was a huge luxury and Christmas was the only time of year we'd have chocolates like that and we looked forward to it for ages.

Now they are about a third of the size, much lower quality, people would think nothing of scoffing a few tubs over Christmas and they seem so cheap, sometimes as little as 3 or 4 quid per tub.

But I'd rather have a small amount of nicer chocolates rather than a huge pile of cheap ones.

So glad it's not just me! Yeah, you used to be able to get ones with Fruit Pastilles and chocolate in as well.

Now it's just a piddly little Freddie, three buttons and a helluva load of plastic.

Definitely taking a few down to a local charity scheme. Even if they had one bar a day it would last about 2 months.

It's at the expense of the quality having deteriorated.

I've just bought 20 small ones in Home Bargains for 89p

Bargain, less than 5p each

I have never ever been bought a selection box. And I’m old.

It's a bloody disgrace what they've managed to do to chocolate with palm oil.

Selection boxes in the eighties/ nineties were things of wonder - tearing into real chocolate early on Christmas morning. It's a shame kids today are stuck with sweet oily bars of crap.

@BarbaraofSevillle I found big tins of quality street on amazon.