Why have Cadbury Finger biscuits disappeared from French supermarkets? FRANCE 24's Delano D'Souza and Solange Mougin find out how Mondelēz International, which owns the Cadbury brand, has stayed quiet about the pulling of the much-loved sugary snack from French supermarket shelves.
A programme produced by Amanda Alexander, Marina Pajovic and Georgina Robertson.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Now, we're ending on a piece of lighter news, and that's, of course, the mysterious disappearance
00:06from French supermarket shelves of a beloved cookie. Solange Mougin is here with more.
00:10Solange, what's gone missing?
00:12Fingers, Delano, fingers, or I should say, les fingers, as they're called, without an
00:18S here in France. Now, if you do not know them, fingers are a brand of cookie or biscuits,
00:22as they say in the UK, that are made by Cadbury. And they are long sticks of crumbly cookie
00:27that are covered in chocolate. Now, one fan of them called them the perfect compromise
00:31between thinner micado and Twix's. Now, for decades, les fingers, without an S, have had
00:38their place on supermarket shelves here in France, evoking for many French children their
00:41childhood snacks. But since this past spring, you cannot find them anymore here. There's
00:47even a sort of black market online for them. Now, many fans thought this was a distribution
00:52issue, as they are still sold in the United Kingdom. But Liberation tells us, and they
00:57broke the story, that these cookies are no longer sold in France. End of story. To confirm
01:03this, the paper had to follow the little crumbs of information that they could find. First,
01:07the PR firms of Mondelez International, which owns the Cadbury brand, they stayed rather
01:12silent about this and vague. So the journalists contacted the supermarket chain Carrefour.
01:17They admitted that they no longer sell them in France, that their distributor no longer
01:21provides them. But the distributor, in turn, denies this, saying that the decision to axe
01:27les fingers here came from the manufacturer, or Mondelez International.
01:31But do we know why?
01:33We don't. Mondelez has not explained or confirmed that they have pulled the cookies from the
01:39aisles this side of the channel. But we do know a few things. First, sugary snacks are
01:43big business here. In the first nine months of this year, sweet snacks like cookies and
01:48ice cream, they brought in 12.8 billion euros, according to Nielsen's. And also in regard
01:54to fingers, which is a tiny sliver of that market. Some food insiders think that they
02:00may have been pulled because consumers are buying more knockoff brands. And it is true
02:05that in France, often these cheaper supermarket versions, they make up 35% of snack purchases.
02:12But Mondelez, which has other brands besides Cadbury, like Lou, Milka and Toblerone, they
02:18also have a huge market share here. They're second with 9% of purchases. And the sudden
02:25pulling of les fingers has not been good press for Mondelez. Not only is there a petition
02:30online, which has hundreds of signatures, but the press in France, including Libération,
02:35Le Monde, and also a lot of foreign papers, well, they've jumped on this story of missing
02:40fingers. The puns are really good. The Guardian, for example, had the excellent headline,
02:45let them eat fakes. Also, the story is a bit mysterious as well. So it had legs. Finally,
02:52while it comes, it comes while Cadbury is already in the hot seat in the United Kingdom.
02:57The brand which Mondelez owns did not receive the royal warrant under Charles III, possibly
03:03because of Mondelez continued activity in Russia. There have also been boycotts of the
03:08entire group in Europe, namely in Scandinavia. Needless to say, many fans of fingers say
03:13that they feel cheated. Referring here to the cookies 1981 TV ad, the slogan was the
03:19chocolate biscuit that doesn't cheat. But again, there is a lot of finger pointing going
03:25on. But you never know things could change. It has happened before other brands like Figaloo,
03:31they have come back after being cut off.
03:34Whenever I don't see any British things I like, I just assume it has something to do
03:38with Brexit. But but you never know. Solange, thank you very much for that. Solange Mougin
03:42there. Time now.