A British supermarket pulled an Easter-themed snack after accusations of racism from concerned customers.
The product, "Waitrose Trio of Chocolate Easter Ducklings," includes three ducks with differing flavors. The milk chocolate duck is named “Crispy,” and the white one is “Fluffy,” but the third one’s name caused the controversy. It is dark chocolate with pink splatter and named “Ugly.”
Shopper Livia A. Aliberti tweeted a picture of the candy to highlight the issue, reports CNN.
Crispy, Fluffy and Ugly – trio of Easter ducklings at #waitrose . Ugly is the dark one on the right. Overheard women saying “this is not right” , I agree, doesn’t look good at all. Thousands of other options… why #ugly????? pic.twitter.com/bw5iFCcPuz
— livia a. aliberti (@livia_aliberti) March 7, 2019
“Overheard women saying ‘this is not right,’ [and] I agree, doesn’t look good at all,” she wrote. “Thousands of other options… why #ugly?????”
Some argued it could be a reference to the classic story “The Ugly Duckling,” in which other ducklings tease a supposed duckling until he realizes he’s a swan.
Please tell me this didn’t happen, has this country gone mad? Who would see this and think anything other than they named it after the ugly duckling from the story ????. Come on people! https://t.co/Z4yaYgqyep
— Sarah Cheek (@S_Cheek44) April 8, 2019
I'm totally against racism but this is NOT racist esp. as in the orig story the Ugly duckling grows up to be the most beautiful of them all! The racists are not Waitrose or those using the trad labels of white, milk & dark choc, but those looking for racism where there isn't any.
— David Meacock (@A40David) April 9, 2019
Waitrose confirmed the connection to Yahoo Style UK.
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The story has a song containing the lyric, "there once was an ugly duckling, with feathers all stubby and brown, and the other birds said in so many words, get out of town."
Waitrose should of done its homework right! The ugly duckling is NOT dark brown it’s GREY! Again advertisers / companies need to be more politically correct otherwise they will have a negative backlash! pic.twitter.com/LFrz8Vz0gr
— Anna (@BartolomeuAnna) April 9, 2019
Waitrose & Partners responded by pulling the snack from its shelves and changing the packaging.
“We are very sorry for any upset caused by the name of this product, it was absolutely not our intention to cause any offense,” the company said in a statement. "We removed the product from sale several weeks ago while we changed the labeling and our ducklings are now back on sale.”
Alberti was understanding.
Thank you #waitrose for changing the packaging . Ref to the 50s tale was a tad outdated. Thank you to those who contributed w comments : change happens when something is brought out into the open and discussed.
— livia a. aliberti (@livia_aliberti) April 9, 2019
“Thank you #waitrose for changing the packaging,” she wrote. “Ref to the 50s tale was a tad outdated. Thank you to those who contributed w comments: change happens when something is brought out into the open and discussed.”
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