Contemporary Dairy Milk design (12g). |
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| Type | Confectionery |
|---|---|
| Owner | Cadbury Australia |
| Country | Australia |
| Introduced | 1930 |
| Related brands | List of Cadbury products |
| Website | Product website |
Freddo (sometimes called Freddo Frog, or Frodo Bar) is a brand of chocolate bar currently manufactured by Cadbury.[1] It was invented in 1930 by Harry Melbourne, an 18 year old moulder employed by MacRobertson's; an Australian confectionery company.[2] It is sold in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, the United Kingdom and Zimbabwe.
Each chocolate is shaped like a cartoon frog, standing up and dressed. Though primarily available as solid milk fingers, certain versions of the product have a cream or caramel centered flavouring. These include Dairy Milk, white chocolate, rice crisp, strawberry, peppermint, "Rainbow Crunch" and "Milky Top" (the top half being white chocolate and the bottom milk chocolate, in the style of Cadbury's "Top Deck" products).
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In 1930, the MacRobertson's chocolate company were looking to add a new product to their children's range. Initial designs for chocolate mouse were rejected, as Harry Melbourne felt that women and children were afraid of mice and would dislike the product. It was instead decided to produce a chocolate frog, branded as "Freddo Frog".[1] There were four varieties available: milk chocolate, white chocolate, half milk/half white, and milk chocolate with peanuts.
Freddo Frogs became part of the Cadbury product range in 1967, when MacRobertson's were sold to Cadbury. In Australia, Freddo Frogs are manufactured in Ringwood, Victoria and Hobart. Since the success of Freddo, an alternative chocolate named Caramello Koala, also made by Cadbury, has been created. Caramello Koala is the only flavour in which the chocolate is not shaped like "Freddo", but shaped like a Koala instead.
Freddo bars were released onto the UK market in 1973 and withdrawn in 1979. After 15 years they were re-launched.[3] In the UK, a caramel filled version is also sold, with a yellow wrapper. This was formerly known as the Taz bar, featuring the Looney Tunes character. They disappeared for several years before returning under the Freddo image.
In June 2006, a scare over possible Salmonella contamination in some Cadbury products in the UK led to the recall of around a million Cadbury chocolate bars, including the standard Freddo.[4] As a result of the contamination Cadbury was fined £1M, and ordered to pay an additional £152,000 in costs.[4]
In 2009, the Freddo chocolate was redesigned in the United Kingdom, featuring a new, glossier Freddo design, and a replacement Dairy Milk logo. The Caramel Freddo also got the redesign. The same year saw the launch of an online animated series, The Adventures of Freddo and the Time Machine, expanding Freddo's character in short narrative stories supported by Flash games. The first series met with enough success to launch a second in 2010, The Adventures of Freddo and the Mystery of Slater Island.[5]
Freddo bars have suffered severely with inflation, the price of the bars has risen 100% from 10p to 20p in the UK over 5 years. There have been many campaigns for the return of the Taz Bar which had a different caramel from that of the newer redesigned Freddo caramel.