UK’s favourite chocolates—who’s winning and losing?
The festive season in the UK has long been synonymous with sharing tubs of sweet, delectable delights from iconic confectionery brands like Celebrations, Quality Street, Cadbury Heroes, Ferrero Rocher, Cadbury Roses, and After Eight. These staples of Christmas gatherings evoke nostalgia and indulgence, but how have they performed in the past five years during the festive season. Using data from YouGov BrandIndex, a syndicated brand tracker which continuously collects data on thousands of brands every day, we analyse the changing consumer perceptions of these brands across key metrics: Value, Impression, Quality and Consideration.
In terms of Index scores, which calculates the overall brand health by taking the average of Impression, Value, Reputation, Satisfaction, Quality and Recommend scores, Ferrero Rocher has emerged as a steady performer, going from 26.1% in 2020 to 27.7% in 2024. This consistent upward trajectory demonstrates its resilience and ability to maintain positive consumer sentiment. Cadbury Heroes has also fared reasonably well, holding relatively stable with a minor decline from 23.6% in 2020 to 22.7% in 2024.
Other brands have faced some challenges in this area. Cadbury Roses and Quality Street have seen their Index scores decrease by four percentage points over the same period. After Eight, which began with an impressive Index score of 29.9% in 2020, has experienced a gradual adjustment, now standing at 25.9% in 2024.
Digging into individual metrics tells a similar story: Impression scores for Ferrero Rocher, which measure overall positive and negative sentiment towards a brand, rose from 35.3 in 2020 to 37.9 in 2024.
Conversely, After Eight’s Impression score dropped from 40.4 to 36.1 over the same period.
Notably, Ferrero Rocher's Quality score emerges as the best improving aspect of its brand health. This score reflects consumer perceptions of the brand's quality, and it stands out as a significant strength.
Celebrations, while initially showing an upward trend in perception, saw its Quality score hit an all-time low of 28.3 in 2024. While Cadbury Heroes has managed to hold consumer opinion about quality, Cadbury Roses continues its consistent decline, struggling to meet consumer expectations in a market increasingly demanding better quality.
Value for money remains a significant hurdle for most confectionery brands. Ferrero Rocher, despite its positive reputation for quality, ends the five-year period with a negative Value score. Cadbury Roses and Quality Street also perform poorly on this metric, with recent controversies surrounding Quality Street’s changes in chocolate size and shape perhaps exacerbating negative perceptions.
By contrast, After Eight has managed to maintain a positive Value score of 5.1 in 2024, with Celebrations and Cadbury Heroes both achieving modest scores of 2.8, suggesting these brands offer some degree of perceived affordability.
Consumer Consideration, which measures the likelihood of purchase, offers another layer of insight. Ferrero Rocher dominates this metric with an impressive average Consideration score of 19.5% across the five-year period.
Celebrations maintains moderate levels of Consideration, but Cadbury Roses and Quality Street find themselves at their lowest point in 2024, with only 15% and 12.5% of consumers, respectively, considering them for their next purchase. These figures suggest that once-beloved brands are increasingly losing their place on shopping lists, especially as consumers weigh cost against quality.
As Christmas approaches, these findings illuminate a critical inflection point for the category. Brands that successfully balance heritage, innovation, and affordability will likely retain their relevance in the hearts—and shopping baskets—of UK consumers.
Methodology: YouGov BrandIndex collects data on thousands of brands every day. A brand’s Index score is an overall measure of brand health, made up of General Impression, Customer Satisfaction, Quality, Value, Corporate Reputation and Recommendation and delivered as a net score. Its Consideration score is based on the question: When you are next in the market to purchase chocolates, which of the following brands would you consider purchasing? Data from surveys of adults aged 18 years and above residing in the UK from January 2020 to December 2024. The figures are based on a monthly average. Learn more about BrandIndex.
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