Clearly people at Glastonbury disagree with the findings of United Biscuits v HMRC (1991)! For those unaware, a hashtag#VAT tribunal had to decide whether Jaffa Cakes were in fact cakes or biscuits for tax purposes. If they were cakes, no VAT is chargeable on them. If they were biscuits, 20% VAT would be chargeable.

Per the judge, biscuit like qualities:

1. “I would expect a biscuit to be smaller than a cake, and the size of a Jaffa Cake is typical of a biscuit and not typical of a cake.”
2. “Jaffa Cakes are packaged in a way that I regard as uncakelike”, in cylindrical packages like digestives.
3. Jaffa Cakes are found with biscuits at supermarkets, not cakes.
4. Jaffa Cakes are eaten with fingers; most cakes are eaten off a plate with a fork.
5. Jaffa Cakes can be eaten with one or two bites, like a biscuit not a cake.

Cake like qualities:

1. Ingredients of the sponge part of the Jaffa Cake are virtually the same as the ingredients of a traditional sponge cake.
2. “The Jaffa Cake has the texture of a sponge cake, which the brittleness of the chocolate does not displace.”
3. “A Jaffa Cake is moist to start with and in that resembles a cake and not a biscuit; with time it becomes stale, and last becomes hard and crisp; again like a cake and not like a biscuit. Generally I would expect a stale biscuit to have become soft.”
4. “The sponge-cake part is not simply a base for the jam and chocolate; it is a substantial part of the product, not in flavour, but in bulk and texture when eaten.”

He concluded overall they have sufficient characteristics of cakes to qualify as cakes. If you like Jaffa Cakes you’ll appreciate this ruling, as if they were biscuits they’d be more expensive due to the VAT on them.