Fed up with finding so many broken Ritz crackers in every box, Richard Pawson decided to investigate. His startling conclusion is that Mondelez is putting broken crackers into the boxes – at the factory.

I enjoy everything about Ritz crackers – the taste, the crunch, topped with cream cheese or just on their own – except for one thing. Why is it that every single box I open contains so many broken crackers? Broken Ritz are just as tasty but less satisfying to eat and unsuitable for holding a topping. Every friend or colleague I have asked – who eats Ritz crackers – reports the same experience.

Given that – at least in the UK – the crackers are packed loosely in a bag within the box, I assumed that they must get damaged in transit, even though I have never seen a Ritz box that showed any external signs of rough handling. This is certainly what Mondelez – owner of Ritz – wants you to believe. Mondelez Consumer Service advised me that 'whilst due to the light and crisp texture of Ritz the product can be susceptible to damage in transit please be assured that great care is taken in its production, packing and distribution to minimise the risk of breakage.' (30th May 2024, Mondelez reference S-14928320)

As an engineer and scientist, it seems to me that the number of broken Ritz is unduly high. I buy several brands of cracker, as well as sweet biscuits – some of them at least as delicate as Ritz – yet breakages on those other products are rare.

On a visit to the USA I was surprised to discover that Ritz are packaged differently there: the crackers are arranged in regular stacks, each stack individually wrapped in plastic to hold the crackers in place.

A quick check with American friends and colleagues suggested that – for them – a broken Ritz is a rare occurrence. So, given that Ritz crackers originated in the USA and that it is still the largest market, why would Mondelez package them differently for UK consumption? I began to get suspicious. I wondered if the loose packing used in the UK is to disguise the fact that crackers are going into the box already broken. But, if true, how could I ever prove it?

One morning I woke up with a surprising thought: what if the evidence had been staring me in the face? I rushed downstairs and opened a fresh box of Ritz, carefully pouring the whole contents onto the countertop. According to details on the box there should be 40 whole crackers in a 150g box. (The boxes used to weigh 200g, but as the BBC reported in March 2024, the re-sized Ritz box was a clear example of 'shrinkflation': selling you less for the same price.)

In that box I found:

• 27 whole crackers, undamaged except for a few missing flakes or slightly damaged edges
• 6 crackers with more obvious damage, but which could plausibly be made whole from the small crumbs in the box
• 2 near-half pieces that could be matched to form a nearly whole cracker – there was still a gap, but this could plausibly be made up from the small crumbs
• 12 pieces (9 of nearly-half size, plus 3 smaller ones) with a total weight equivalent to approximately 6 whole crackers. (I used high-precision digital scales.)

However, none of those last 12 pieces could be matched with any other piece(s) to form a whole cracker, nor even to form a larger piece of a whole cracker. So those 12 pieces could not have originated from whole crackers damaged in transit. On the first box I had opened, I had clear evidence that crackers are going into the box at the factory already broken.

To prove that this box wasn't an anomaly, over the next few months I undertook a similar analysis of 9 more boxes of Ritz, purchasing them from more than one branch of both Waitrose and Tesco, no more than 2 boxes in one purchase. All were well within their 'Best before' date, and I kept a note of the batch numbers. Analysis and photographs of the contents of all 10 boxes is shown in the table below. (I have also roped-in several friends to perform a similar analysis on their own purchases of Ritz, all of whom reported seeing a similar pattern. However, the details and photographs shown in the table below are all from my own purchases.)

Box No.	Contents	Details
1		27 whole 6 damaged but with all 7 holes 2 matchable pieces forming a nearly-whole cracker 12 unmatchable pieces (9 near-halves plus 3 smaller pieces) crumbs Batch: 87 OCA0041233 Best before: 28/02/2025 Opened: 24th May 2024
2		34 whole 2 matchable pieces 10 unmatchable large pieces 3 smaller pieces crumbs Batch: 87 OCA0041233 Best before: 28/02/2025 Opened: 31st May 2024
3		35 whole 3 damaged but with all 7 holes 3 unmatchable pieces (it might appear that two of them match - but look carefully at the holes crumbs Batch: 87 OCA0041433 Best before: 31/03/2025 Opened: 16th June 2024
4		37 whole (one stack of 10 not in picture) 4 matching pieces making up two whole crackers 1 unmatched large piece a few tiny crumbs only Batch: 87 OCA0041433 Best before: 31/03/2025 Opened: 20th June 2024
5		33 whole 8 pieces that match to form 4 whole crackers 3 unmatched large pieces 5 smaller pieces – not matchable to the larger pieces no significant crumbs Batch: not recorded Opened: 29th June 2024<
6		33 whole 2 matched pieces 5 large pieces unmatchable with each other or the smaller pieces 10 smaller pieces crumbs. Batch: 85 OCA0042241 Best before: 30/04/2025 Opened: 20th July 2024
7		34 whole 7 unmatched near-halves 5 smaller pieces very small amount of crumbs Batch: 85 OCA0041841 Best before: 30/04/2025 Opened: 28th July 2024
8		33 whole, undamaged 3 whole, with minor damage 8 large matching pieces. This the only box I have seen where all parts could be matched to form whole crackers Batch: 85 OCA0042643 Best before: 31/05/2025 Opened: 15th August 2024
9		32 whole 4 with minor damage 2 matching parts – plausibly made up to whole by the crumbs 5 substantial parts none matchable crumbs Batch: 85 OCA0042612 Best before: 31/05/2025 Opened: 28th August 2024
10		39 whole 2 crackers of more than half-size, non- matching tiny amount of crumbs (all shown) Batch: 85 OCA0042643 Best before: 31/05/2025 Opened: 9th September 2024

All 10 boxes that I analysed contained multiple broken pieces, but in only one of the 10 boxes (No. 8 in the table above) was it possible to match up all the parts to form whole crackers – or even nearly-whole, allowing for gaps to be filled by the small crumbs. The most startling example is No. 10 in the table: 39 whole crackers, plus two large pieces that do not fit together. No. 4 is similar.

Possibly, the high number of broken Ritz is an inevitable consequence of the manufacturing process. But if so, how is the problem avoided for the USA? Either the plants making Ritz for USA consumption have solved the problem, or they are successfully removing the broken ones before packaging. Why can't Mondelez do the same for the UK?

I don't wish to encourage unnecessary waste in food manufacturing, but one obvious solution would be to sell the broken crackers as a cheaper snack. I am just old enough to remember high-street grocers selling bags of broken biscuits at a knock down price. Or perhaps the broken Ritz could be ground up to make cooking crumbs – an alternative to Panko?

Incidentally, Mondelez declined to answer my question about where the Ritz that we purchase in the UK are manufactured, telling me that: 'We are not legally required to disclose the country of manufacture. All the packaging meets labelling requirements.' (30th May 2024, Mondelez reference S-14928320) This is correct in legal terms, but it is a surprising stance in an era when many consumers are concerned about the carbon footprint of the food they eat.

Is Mondelez management aware that they are putting broken crackers into the boxes sold in the UK? How can they not be? Like every major food processor, Mondelez must have effective quality assurance (QA) checks, possibly throughout the process, and – one would hope – at the end of the production line. The QA inspectors need only to open one box as it comes off the production line to realise that many crackers aren't leaving the factory intact.

I emailed a draft of this article to the Press Office for Mondelez UK on 28th September 2024, inviting comment. I followed up with two separate voicemail messages (I never managed to get through to a person). None of these attempts resulted in any response.

What is my intent in publishing this article? Simple: to try to persuade Mondelez to abandon this cynical practice of including broken crackers in a (UK) box of Ritz. When I see evidence – in the boxes – that Mondelez has changed its practice I will gladly make that known here and, in due course, close the website. Meantime ... if you want to help this cause along, please do the following:

1. Don't take my word for it: verify my claims about broken Ritz by carefully opening your next box of Ritz and sorting the contents in the manner shown in the table above. When attempting to match broken pieces, ensure that the pieces are all right-side-up – the underside typically has darker patches or stripes from the baking process. Also pay close attention to the 7 perforations. Notice that they form an irregular hexagonal shape, where one of its three axes is longer than the other two. Two broken Ritz pieces might initially appear to match, but on closer inspection the holes wouldn't fit the standard pattern. An example of this may be seen in Box 3 within the table above.
2. Let Mondelez know if you are disatisfied with what you have found. The 'contact us' form for UK customers may be found here. Don't forget to record the specific box details.
3. Pass on a link to this article to anyone you know who eats Ritz crackers. If reposting, you might like use the hash-tag #brokenRitz.

Richard Pawson, 12th October 2024.

I wish to make it clear that my interest in this topic is purely as a consumer of Ritz. I have no professional relationship to Mondelez, nor any of its competitors, and do not work in the food/snacks industry.