Waitrose removes ‘ugly’ Easter chocolate duckling from shelves after complaints of racism
Waitrose has been forced to apologise and temporarily remove a trio of chocolate ducklings from its shelves, after customers complained about the darkest one being called “Ugly”.
One customer tweeted to say it “doesn’t look good at all. Thousands of other options… why ugly?????”
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The £8 product featured a white chocolate duck called “Crispy”, a milk chocolate duck called “Fluffy”, while the dark chocolate duck was called “Ugly”.
The supermarket confirmed this morning it had pulled the product and changed the label, with the names removed.
https://twitter.com/livia_aliberti/status/1103692238272499714
A spokesperson for the supermarket chain said: “We are very sorry for any upset caused by the name of this product, it was absolutely not our intention to cause any offence.
“We removed the product from sale several weeks ago while we changed the labelling and our ducklings are now back on sale.”
The name appears to be a reference to the fairy tale of The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Anderson, which features a duckling which is mocked for being “stubby and brown”, before growing into a white swan.
Some Twitter users, however, suggested the chain should not have to remove the item, and that complainants were being too politically correct.
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"Who has the time or inclination to think to complain about this stuff?" asked one user.
“Political correctness gone mad… Yet again,” another person said.
https://twitter.com/sineadhannah6/status/1115381337714769920