In the United Kingdom, value added tax is payable on chocolate-covered biscuits, but not on chocolate-covered cakes. [16] [17] McVities defended its classification of Jaffa Cakes as cakes at a VAT tribunal in 1991, against the ruling that Jaffa cakes were biscuits due to their size and shape, and the fact that they were often eaten in place of biscuits. [18] McVities insisted that the product was a cake, and produced a giant Jaffa Cake in court to illustrate its point. [18] These are the latest examples of “shrinkflation”, a phenomenon whereby manufacturers reduce the size of products ranging from chocolate bars to fruit juice and even toilet roll but consumers still pay the same price. Notable examples include Toblerone spacing out its signature triangles and Mars shrinking its sharing bags of Maltesers by 15%.

VAT Tribunal case LON/91/0160 (United Biscuits)". Archived from the original on 10 February 2019 . Retrieved 9 February 2019. Jaffa Cake's lemon squeezy bar". Thegrocer.co.uk. Archived from the original on 29 September 2011 . Retrieved 25 August 2010. Pladis to push McVitie's Jaffa Cakes with 'Be What You Want To Be' ad campaign". BetterRetailing. 26 February 2021 . Retrieved 24 March 2021. Jaffa Cakes reignites an ancient dispute in return to TV". www.campaignlive.co.uk . Retrieved 24 March 2021.Davies, E. R.; Patel, D.; Johnstone, A. I. C. (1995). "Crucial issues in the design of a real-time contaminant detection system for food products". Real-Time Imaging. 1 (6): 397–407. The Irish Revenue Commissioners also regard Jaffa Cakes as cakes, since their moisture content is greater than 12%. As a result, they are charged the reduced rate of VAT (13.5% as of 2016 [update]). [24]

United Biscuits (UK) Ltd (No. 2). [1991] BVC 818 | Croner-i Tax and Accounting". library.croneri.co.uk . Retrieved 17 February 2021. Abernethy, Laura (27 January 2020). "McVitie's launches new pineapple flavour Jaffa Cakes". Metro . Retrieved 7 March 2020. Chabo, Elena (5 January 2021). "McVitie's has launched new Jaffa Cake flavours Passionfruit and Cherry". Good Housekeeping . Retrieved 27 January 2021.The gelatine should never boil- we always add gelatine when the mixture isn't boiling. Remove from the heat, then stir in the gelatine powder. Davies, E. R. (2003). "Design of object location algorithms and their use for food and cereals inspection". In Machine Vision for the Inspection of Natural Products. Springer. pp.393–420. doi: 10.1007/1-85233-853-9_15. ISBN 1-85233-525-4.