Premier Foods is shrinking packs of Mr Kipling cake slices ahead of putting prices up

BOXES of Mr Kipling cake slices have been shrunk ahead of its manufacturer putting up prices.

Premier Foods warned today that it is considering putting up the price of its products, which also include Bisto gravy granules and Oxo stock cubes, by a “single digit mark”.

But ahead of the hike it has emerged that boxes of one its most popular products are being made smaller.

Premier Food confirmed to The Sun Online that it is replacing its box of nine cake slices with smaller pack of eight. It is also getting rid of four cake slice boxes, in most of its flavours.

The change will affect multi-pack Mr Kipling cakes which are individually wrapped, including chocolate, angel, lemon and caramel slices. It is not changing the classic six cake box.

One shopper spotted the new and old boxes being sold alongside each other at a Tesco store in Essex earlier today.

Premier Foods told The Sun Online that the cakes were not due to hit shops until February but it had prematurely shipped a "limited quantity" of the new smaller boxes to Tesco.

As the supermarket wasn't expecting the delivery it treated them as a nine cake box.

Richard Johnson, a spokesman from Premier Foods, said: "I can only apologise to anyone who has been misled by this. It is a genuine error. We are working to correct this as soon as we can."

Premier Foods said that the smaller eight pack box will have a recommended selling price of £2.25, while the current nine cake packs are recommended at £2.39.

He added: "We recommend prices to retailers but it's up to them to decide the price of an item."

Earlier today, Premier Foods, which manufactures dozens of well-known household food products, said that a combination of a weak pound and higher raw material costs were to blame for the price warning.

It confirmed that it had entered negotiations with major UK supermarkets, including Tesco, Sainsburys and Asda due to growing pricing pressures as a result of the EU referendum.

A spokesman said: "We take a blended approach to managing cost increases driven by currency and commodity factors.

“We look to manage our own efficiencies, adjust promotional mechanics and formats where appropriate and finally look at limited price increases where these can't be avoided.

“The situation on pricing differs between our different categories and brands and is currently under discussion with our individual retail customers.

“However, on average we are considering rises around the mid single digit mark."

Premier Foods’ other products include Ambrosia Milk, Cadbury cakes, Oxo cubes, Angel Delight and Homepride Flour.

Last week, The Sun Online revealed that Nestle shrunk the size of KitKat bars nine months ago.

It said that the change was to bring the bar sold in the UK in line with those it already sells in Europe.

The bars now weigh 41.4g down from 45g – but have remained at the same price.

In November, Toblerone maker, Mondelez International faced a furious backlash from chocolate fans after changing the shape of its distinctive bars.

It increased the gap between the peaks to reduce the weight of a 400g bar to 170g.

Grab-bag size bars of Maltesers and Galaxy Counters have also dropped in size. The “snack size” products are made by Mars who blamed the change on the higher cost of raw materials.

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