00:00Now, we're ending on a piece of lighter news, and that's, of course, the mysterious disappearance
00:06from French supermarket shelves of a beloved cookie. Solange Mougin is here with more.
00:10Solange, what's gone missing?
00:12Fingers, Delano, fingers, or I should say, les fingers, as they're called, without an
00:18S here in France. Now, if you do not know them, fingers are a brand of cookie or biscuits,
00:22as they say in the UK, that are made by Cadbury. And they are long sticks of crumbly cookie
00:27that are covered in chocolate. Now, one fan of them called them the perfect compromise
00:31between thinner micado and Twix's. Now, for decades, les fingers, without an S, have had
00:38their place on supermarket shelves here in France, evoking for many French children their
00:41childhood snacks. But since this past spring, you cannot find them anymore here. There's
00:47even a sort of black market online for them. Now, many fans thought this was a distribution
00:52issue, as they are still sold in the United Kingdom. But Liberation tells us, and they
00:57broke the story, that these cookies are no longer sold in France. End of story. To confirm
01:03this, the paper had to follow the little crumbs of information that they could find. First,
01:07the PR firms of Mondelez International, which owns the Cadbury brand, they stayed rather
01:12silent about this and vague. So the journalists contacted the supermarket chain Carrefour.
01:17They admitted that they no longer sell them in France, that their distributor no longer
01:21provides them. But the distributor, in turn, denies this, saying that the decision to axe
01:27les fingers here came from the manufacturer, or Mondelez International.
01:31But do we know why?
01:33We don't. Mondelez has not explained or confirmed that they have pulled the cookies from the
01:39aisles this side of the channel. But we do know a few things. First, sugary snacks are
01:43big business here. In the first nine months of this year, sweet snacks like cookies and
01:48ice cream, they brought in 12.8 billion euros, according to Nielsen's. And also in regard
01:54to fingers, which is a tiny sliver of that market. Some food insiders think that they
02:00may have been pulled because consumers are buying more knockoff brands. And it is true
02:05that in France, often these cheaper supermarket versions, they make up 35% of snack purchases.
02:12But Mondelez, which has other brands besides Cadbury, like Lou, Milka and Toblerone, they
02:18also have a huge market share here. They're second with 9% of purchases. And the sudden
02:25pulling of les fingers has not been good press for Mondelez. Not only is there a petition
02:30online, which has hundreds of signatures, but the press in France, including Libération,
02:35Le Monde, and also a lot of foreign papers, well, they've jumped on this story of missing
02:40fingers. The puns are really good. The Guardian, for example, had the excellent headline,
02:45let them eat fakes. Also, the story is a bit mysterious as well. So it had legs. Finally,
02:52while it comes, it comes while Cadbury is already in the hot seat in the United Kingdom.
02:57The brand which Mondelez owns did not receive the royal warrant under Charles III, possibly
03:03because of Mondelez continued activity in Russia. There have also been boycotts of the
03:08entire group in Europe, namely in Scandinavia. Needless to say, many fans of fingers say
03:13that they feel cheated. Referring here to the cookies 1981 TV ad, the slogan was the
03:19chocolate biscuit that doesn't cheat. But again, there is a lot of finger pointing going
03:25on. But you never know things could change. It has happened before other brands like Figaloo,
03:31they have come back after being cut off.
03:34Whenever I don't see any British things I like, I just assume it has something to do
03:38with Brexit. But but you never know. Solange, thank you very much for that. Solange Mougin
03:42there. Time now.
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