Waitrose has apologised for selling “racist” chocolate Easter ducklings after it received complaints that the dark one was named “ugly”.
The £8 trio of chocolate ducks included a white chocolate duckling called “Fluffy”, a milk chocolate one called “Crispy” and a dark chocolate one called “Ugly”.
The complaints centred around the dark brown confectionery item being labelled “ugly”, with some implying it was racist.
One Twitter user who took offence to the labelling shared an image of the Easter gift online, writing: “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?????”
Another person agreed, adding: “Surely Waitrose knew that people would be offended by this?”
Following a string of similar complaints, Waitrose temporarily withdrew the ducklings from sale while it redesigned the packaging to remove the names.
The redesigned packs are now back on sale in stores and online.
A Waitrose spokesperson 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.”
However, many Twitter users have reacted angrily to the supermarket’s decision to remove the chocolate ducklings, suggesting it has given in to excessive political correctness.
“Political correctness gone mad... Yet again,” one person wrote.
Another added: “Well why is it racist it’s three different types of chocolate. Waitrose are making it worst by bowing to it out of fear of being labelled.”
