A Mars Bar with a 1991 best-before date has been discovered during a house clearance in Scunthorpe, England, drawing attention online because it weighs substantially more than a current version of the chocolate bar. The old wrapper lists 62.5 grams, compared with 40 grams for the modern bar placed beside it.
Victoria Gordon, who runs the cleaning service Pocket Rockets, found the confectionery while clearing a house containing possessions accumulated over decades. Its size caught her attention because the bar was almost the length of her hand. She photographed it next to a present-day Mars Bar and shared the comparison on social media.
The 22.5-gram difference means the older product is more than half the weight of the current 40-gram version again. Online discussion treated the image as an example of shrinkflation, the term commonly used when a product becomes smaller without an equivalent visible reduction in price. The discovery alone, however, does not document the sequence of package sizes or prices across all 35 years.
Mars Incorporated said it had made several changes to bar sizes and pack formats during that period. A company spokesperson cited consumer demand alongside external considerations such as manufacturing expense and cocoa prices. The statement did not dispute the two weights shown in Gordon's comparison.
Mars Bars were first made by hand in Slough in 1932 and continue to be produced in the Berkshire town. The brand belongs to the United States-based Mars company, which also owns chocolate labels including Galaxy, M&Ms, Maltesers, Celebrations and Hotel Chocolat, along with businesses in other food and pet-care categories.
The found bar is about 35 years old by its best-before date and was not presented as edible. Gordon said she nearly discarded it with the rest of the clearance material before recognizing the unusual packaging. After the post spread widely, she joked that the item could be valuable and considered taking it on a tour. She had not decided what to do with it.
The viral response turns an ordinary piece of discarded packaging into a physical record of product change. It clearly shows that this 1991 bar was heavier than the compared current one, while broader claims about value, pricing and corporate motives require more evidence than the photograph supplies. For Gordon, the immediate outcome is simpler: an object almost thrown away became the most discussed find from the clearance.
The weight comparison is exact for the two wrappers pictured: 62.5 grams minus 40 grams equals 22.5 grams. It does not show whether every bar sold in 1991 had the same specification or how multipacks and regional products changed over time.
