Tim Hortons seems to outdo itself each year that it hosts smile cookie week, its annual fundraising effort during which all proceeds from the cheerful treats are donated to charities and community groups nationwide.
This year’s event, which runs from April 29 until May 5, supports more than 600 causes, including the Children’s Breakfast Clubs, the Sick Kids Foundation, the Children’s Rehabilitation Foundation, and others in Toronto.
But when we say the homegrown cafe chain has gone above and beyond yet again in 2024, we mostly mean in regard to how hilarious and even disturbing its anthropomorphized baked goods have ended up, which is something that people love to document each spring.
My sister’s “smile” cookie. 🤔 pic.twitter.com/mnsjHyQo6L
— Mike J. 🇺🇦 🇨🇦 (@MikeJToronto) April 30, 2024
Spotting and sharing the most deformed of the restaurant’s smile cookies has become a beloved pastime, especially in Toronto, where volunteers seem particularly skilled at putting wonky excuses for smiles on the brand’s delicious chocolate chip sweets.
While people have taken to social media to share photos of cookies with missing eyeballs, terrifyingly melted faces or even decidedly unsmiling appearances, some are bringing up another, more serious concern: that they feel like the products have shrunk.
You’re not alone. It’s happening.
— Paul Daniel (@pdaniel2553) April 29, 2024
In what is not the first accusation of shrinkflation against the brand, a couple of people on social media are questioning the size of this year’s charity cookies.
“This is clearly a smile JR cookie,” one Tim’s customer from Toronto wrote on X this week, adding that they were “pissed.”
Residents are having a hoot with some of the more messed-up-looking cookies, as they do every year. (Post from the Weird Toronto Facebook group)
Of course, with nothing to compare this year’s batches to aside from photos and memories, and with consumers hyper-suspicious of shrinkflation and other profiteering strategies from large corporations (more often grocers), it’s hard to tell if the worries are valid.
But, a representative from Tim Hortons confirmed to blogTO on Wednesday that nothing about the smile cookies has changed, saying that the biscuits have definitely “NOT decreased in size this year.”
Also apparently unchanged is the unique variety of “smiling” expressions the cookies use, depending on which location you visit.