A British woman’s discovery of an enormous, decades-old Mars bar has become an internet phenomenon. It has prompted a discussion about shrinkflation.
Owner of Pocket Rockets, a specialist cleaning enterprise, Victoria Gordon said that she was cleaning the apartment of an elderly woman, whom she referred to as a ‘hoarder’, on Wednesday, 5 August ’26. Among the hundreds of boxes in the woman’s spare bedroom, she had found the old Mars bar. It had an expiry date of ’91.
Gordon said in a video interview with CTVNews.ca on Tuesday, 11 August ’26, from Lincoln, England, that nobody had been in the bedroom for years. The floor-to-ceiling was filled with boxes & bags. It took them 2 days to clear the whole room.
Gordon added that the Mars bar in one of the boxes caught her attention.
She added that as she lifted it out of the box, it was literally the size of her hand, so it was enormous.
Gorden further stated that she had initially thrown away the Mars bar after posting a video of it on TikTok. However, she reconsidered and chose to keep the unexpected treasure. The video, titled How Big Is This Mars Bar from ’91, had attracted more than 40,000 likes besides more than 1,500 comments.
The old chocolate bar was 62.5 grams, so it was 56% heavier than today’s 40-gram product. Gordon shared that people are noticing that similar products are being sold in smaller packages.
She asserted that the price of everything’s increasing all the time. Consumers are getting squeezed & squeezed more. The cost of living was increasing.
Due to the massive interest, she shared a second video comparing the size of the 35-year-old Mars bar to the treat.
Mars, Inc. cited cost pressures and supply chain issues as reasons for the change in size.
Gordon inferred that she believes that the discovery drew so much attention, as people seemed really disgruntled about shrinkflation.
