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Milka Alpenmilch Named 'Mogelpackung of the Year' With April Hearing Pending

The outcome underscores anger over shrinkflation, setting up a legal test of whether the stealth reduction misled shoppers.

Overview

  • Milka Alpenmilch received 23,165 of 34,731 votes (66.7 percent) in Verbraucherzentrale Hamburg’s online poll for the 2025 “Mogelpackung.”
  • The bar’s net weight fell from 100 grams to 90 grams early in 2025 while the shelf price rose from €1.49 to €1.99, an effective increase of about 48 percent per bar.
  • Verbraucherzentrale Hamburg has sued Mondelez at the Regional Court in Bremen, with a hearing scheduled in April to determine whether the change was misleading under consumer law.
  • Mondelez defends the move by citing sharply higher costs, particularly cocoa, and says the new weight is clearly printed on the pack and was communicated on social media.
  • Consumer advocates argue the thinner bar and largely unchanged packaging made the reduction hard to notice, renewing calls for clearer shrinkflation labeling similar to rules in France, Austria and Brazil.