You may recall that a Facebook campaign recently persuaded Cadbury to reintroduce the Wispa chocolate bar. Well, they are now in the shops, a bit before the official 6th October release date, and one of my colleagues bought one last week.

I was puzzled to note that no weight (note to pedants: mass) is given on the packet. You can work it out from the nutritional information table, which is given per 100 g and per bar, but the nominal weight is not written. I’m a bit sad, so I went onto Cadbury’s website, found the contact form, and asked a couple of questions, to the effect of:

  1. Is the weight really not indicated?
  2. Is that legal?

Today, I received a reply:

Thank you for your recent E-mail concerning the weight of our Wispa. I hope the following clarifies the position.

We have, in common with other manufacturers, a legal obligation to declare the weight of products over 50g in weight. Below this weight where there is no legislating framework the ‘industry standard’ is to refer to those products as ‘standard’ or ‘single’ bars which is largely an historic precedent. There is certainly no intention to deceive in this practice as we are sure you understand.

We hope this clarifies your queries and answers your questions. We are always happy to hear from our consumers and thank you for taking the trouble to write to us.

Cadbury Consumer Relations Department

How great! They replied to me, and I learned a new, useless fact.

So how much does a Wispa weigh, then? I didn’t calculate it, and I don’t have a wrapper. But it’s less than 50 g, obviously.

Update: I’ve checked on a Wispa wrapper. It contains 2255 kJ per 100 g, or 880 kJ per bar. The bar is therefore 39 g.