Honey, they've shrunk our Mars Bars: a 1991 bar found in a house clearance

A 35-year-old Mars Bar has been found during a house clearance in Scunthorpe, and the discovery has gone viral amid claims it illustrates shrinkflation. The chocolate bar carries a best-before date of 1991.

The find

Victoria Gordon, who runs the cleaning service Pocket Rockets, found the chocolate on 5 August and posted a photo on social media showing the 62.5 g bar next to one of today's Mars Bars, which weighs 40 g. She told the BBC it was nearly as big as her hand, which is why she noticed it. Speaking on BBC Radio Lincolnshire, Gordon said the team had been clearing out a hoarder's house where everything they were rooting through was decades old.

Mars responds

A Mars spokesperson told the BBC that over the last 35 years the company has made a number of updates to its bar sizes and pack formats to reflect consumer demand, alongside wider external factors such as manufacturing costs and the price of cocoa.

What happens to the bar

Gordon said she is not sure what she will do with the bar, but joked that she might be sitting on a gold mine. She has posted hoarding videos before, she added, but nothing had ever gone viral like this; she nearly threw the chocolate into a skip and says she might now take it on a UK tour.