FAMILIES dipping their hands into traditional sweet tubs this Christmas will find fewer of their favourite treats when they are passed around during the TV specials.

Research has found retailers are selling Quality Street by York-based Nestle and Cadbury's Roses for the same price as 12 months ago, but they claim the confectionary giants behind them have slimmed down the tins.

Quality Street includes the traditional toffee finger, strawberry delight and the purple one, but has shrunk from 820g to 780g. And Roses have gone down by 100g in weight but up by 24p.

However, this has not been reflected in the price with last year's £5 charge for Quality Street remaining for this year's festivities. The Press bought £5 tubs of Roses and Quality Street from Morrisons, where Heroes and Mars' celebrations are also on offer for the same price.

A spokesman for York-based Nestlé said: "We always aim to offer our consumers great value for money for the brands they love.

"Our decision to make this small size reduction has been driven by the cost of ingredients as they continue to rise and our challenge is always to minimise the impact on our consumers."