British shoppers have slammed Marks & Spencer for making all Percy Pigs vegetarian with some saying they now taste like "washing-up liquid”.
The retailer said it had removed gelatine from the beloved pig-shaped sweets to make the sweets suitable for vegetarians.
"After a lot of hard work (and tasting) we've finally perfected a 100 per cent vegetarian Percy - something our customers have been asking us for, for a while!” an M&S spokesman said.
However fans of the original recipe were quick to describe the new version as less than perfect.
One person tweeted to M&S: "Why do your percy pigs taste like washing up liquid and have such a strange texture? Really disappointed as they’re basically inedible."
Percy Pigs were first released in 1992. In 2011, M&S introduced a vegetarian version – 'Veggie Percy' – so “even more people could enjoy them”.
However, the retailer has now gradually rolled out the gelatine free recipe as standard.
Good Morning Britain host Piers Morgan was among those to express outrage over the move.
The 53-year-old spat out the sweet live on air as he ranted about the new recipe on Wednesday.
He said: "Seriously, go and get sweets that aren't called Percy Pig. Go and get ones called kale nicies, right, which taste disgusting but you can all feel happy because they are made of kale.
"Leave our pig sweets alone you people."
TalkRadio presenter Julia Hartley Brewer also announced she had conducted a taste test of the sweets on her breakfast show.
She later tweeted: "Verdict: they taste like Blutac dipped in washing-up liquid. Yuck."
M&S has insisted the new version safeguards “the really important things that people love about Percy”.
A spokesman added: "Rest assured we’ve tested the new recipe thoroughly to make sure he’s as close to the original as possible and we have haven’t changed any of the really important things that people love about Percy; the flavour is the same, he still has real fruit juice and never has artificial colours or flavours.”
