Why Mr. Freddo is the true martyr of our generation

Don’t blame him for his 20p price tag, he’s just the scapegoat.


The economy’s gone to shit but that doesn’t mean you can go around blaming inanimate frogs. Sure, back in the day he was half his current price and life was good. I understand you’re upset – we all are. However, I think it’s much more important to place our anger in a more relevant place. Leave this frog alone.

Its 10p beginnings dominated childhoods: a time when the summers were longer and we weren’t a country at war. It was a sign of stability.

A reminder that no matter how bad things got, you could always take a 10p coin to the corner shop and come back with 18 grams of happiness. I think it was around this time that science proved that chocolate tastes better when shaped like a frog – similar to how sandwiches taste better as triangles.

However this fond memory has suffered at the opportunistic hands of Mr. Cadbury and left Britain pretty much hopping mad. That sweet memory has turned so fast into hatred. First it was 15p, and there was a general unease spreading. We all knew something was wrong but didn’t quite know what, how, or where to say it.

Now, it’s hit us at full force, and that smiley, previously innocent green face is met with a feeling of disgust; like we’ve been betrayed.

This friendly frog was the chocolate treat of every individual’s childhood, there to comfort in times of trouble and to reward in moments of happiness. At 10p a bar Freddo was truly the Robin Hood of our childhood, meaning you could enter a shop with £1 and leave with type II diabetes.

But is it really the frog’s fault? The allure of the Freddo bar has become tainted by a price that paints him as a Fred-don’t. The beauty of this froggy creation has become victim to economic inflation that screams “screw you Cadbury” and a shoddy PR campaign that has left him scapegoat to the failures of one Mr. Cadbury.

This humble frog has seen its joyful 10p days fall victim to a vicious slander campaign that has destroyed countless childhoods with its outrageous 20p price tag.

And Freddo’s goodness didn’t just come from those corner shop visits. Freddo stood there as a companion – a reminder that good times were only a big silver coin away. A surrogate father figure who could be relied upon and who is always waiting in rain or shine, just around the corner.

Poor Freddo has seen an onslaught for this barbarity, suffering the tears and temper tantrums of its customer’s reaction to this inflation. Mr. Cadbury has done well in substituting his shortcomings to this frog, but 20p-gate, as it should be called, is not the fault of Freddo but a chocolate-coup that has seen Freddo become scapegoat to Nestle and Hershey’s failures.

I tried buying a multipack once, but all I got was a pack full of puny little tadpoles. Again, I don’t think our initial reaction should be to blame Mr. and Mrs. Freddo for this – they didn’t choose to sell their progeny in this way. It’s the man upstairs. The faceless corporation.

I think the truth of the crime is pretty clear: Cadbury saw the friendship between children and his chocolate frog and became threatened by the power this gave humble Fred. They passed their own business failings onto Freddo, subsidising the boring Dairy Milk bar with his success.

With families struggling to make a living in today’s economic climate, the joys Freddo once provided to a generation have been literally placed onto the back shelf. Where now will children look to find their father figure?

Wake up sheeple. Read between the lines. This has been a well disguised truth by Dairy milk, but the fact that everyone is outraged from Fred’s crime shows the gain to be had from such a sinister conspiracy.

Edmond Burke said that for evil to prevail, all it needs is for good men to do nothing. In an age where we accept 70p Mars bars and undersized crème eggs, it’s inevitable that we turned out backs and felt betrayed by that innocent green frog.

But this is where we make our stand. Freddo now needs the support of the children it befriended back in the 1990s so open up your purses, gather together your pennies and reclaim the chocolate hero of our generation.