Dear Green & Blacks

Dear Green & Blacks, it’s not me, it’s you.

You don’t know me, of course, and you certainly don’t care about me. But I’ve been one of your most dedicated customers for over 18 years now.

Before that, I ate a lot of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk and Twixes, but I was suffering badly with IBS. One of the many things I was advised to do to ease my symptoms was to switch from milk chocolate to a ‘good quality dark chocolate’. Green & Blacks was specifically recommended. Of course, it tasted bitter at first. But within days, I was hooked.

My thing was Maya Gold. Dark chocolate with orange and spices. I LOVED IT. I ate it every single day. I took it on holiday with me. I ate it on Christmas Day despite all the other treats around. And I didn’t just eat the recommended portion sizes either. I always ate at least double and sometimes a lot more.

It’s no exaggeration to say that Green & Blacks gave me life.

But then, early last year, something terrible happened.

You discontinued Maya Gold.

What was I going to do?

So I switched to my ‘reserve’ chocolate – Ginger. Ginger was always the one I ate when Maya Gold was out of stock. It was pretty good, but not quite as good as Maya Gold. But it still had the dark chocolate and the spiciness.

A couple of months ago, I ate some chocolate and it tasted wrong. I thought it was out of date. But it wasn’t out of date, it still had 18 months to run. Maybe the packaging had been damaged and it had got a bit stale? But the next bar tasted wrong too. And the one after that.

Then I realised. The percentage of cocoa had changed – from 60% to 50%. And it seemed the percentage of ginger had probably changed too. It was always very visible inside the chocolate, but suddenly it was almost non-existent.

Someone suggested to me that you hoped to encourage more custom by making it sweeter. Because people prefer sweeter chocolate.

I doubt that’s the case, but if it is, let me remind you PEOPLE EAT GREEN & BLACKS BECAUSE THEY LIKE BITTER CHOCOLATE. THEY DON’T WANT SWEET CHOCOLATE.

But I suspect it’s just a shrinkflation thing. Cocoa is expensive, so you’re trying to get away with the poorest quality chocolate you can without reducing the price your customers pay. £3.25 for 90g. That is a lot of money!

Did I mention that I buy my chocolate in bulk? I nearly always buy eight or 10 bars at once. I still had some old stock left. Chocolate with 60% cocoa. And OH MY GOODNESS IT WAS AMAZING.

But that soon ran out.

And guess what I’m doing? I’m trying all the different brands and own brands to see if I can find a spicy dark chocolate which is actually dark. And as a bonus, some of them are cheaper.

You don’t care because you’re no longer an independent British company. You were bought first by Cadbury and then by Mondelez. You’re only interested in making the lowest common denominator chocolate and the most cash. You don’t care about your most dedicated customer.

But I wanted to let you know you’re losing me anyway.

As I said, it’s not me. It’s you.