Waitrose pulls 'racist' chocolate Easter ducklings from sale after customers complain
 

Waitrose has apologised over "racist" Easter ducks after customers complained that the dark brown one was labelled as "ugly".

An £8 trio of white, milk and dark chocolate Easter ducklings caused offence among a "small number" of customers for being labelled as "fluffy", "crispy" and "ugly".

The complaints centered around the dark brown one being described as the "ugly" one, with some implying it was racist.

Following the feedback, the supermarket temporarily withdrew the ducklings from sale while it redesigned the packaging to remove the labels. The redesigned packs are now back on sale in stores and online.

The names are likely to have been inspired by the song "the ugly duckling", from the literary fairy tale by Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen, later adapted by Disney
The song is about a small, brown ugly duckling who is mocked and excluded by the other ducklings. Later he discovers he is not a duck when he sheds his brown feathers and grows into a beautiful white swan.

The lyrics go: "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."

A Waitrose spokesman 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."

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ings-sale.html

https://i.postimg.cc/mk7RzwHX/120211...4754196842.jpg

I hope people who have neon pink speckles across their dark skin are okay after seeing that.

...I swear we have one of these ‘that egg is offensive’ type stories every year...I would have said the ‘ugly’ in it might have been that it’s plain chocolate..therefore a little bit more bitter and less creamy and sweet than the other two...not any type of racist connotation...that just silly surely...very eggstreme and eggstroadinary...and eggsagerated...and blooming eggspensive at £8 for the box...

Compared to the H&M blunder of "coolest monkey" , I DON'T think this issue is that serious :rolleyes: And I think the pink speckles are suppose to emphasis how different the duckling is, so yeah it isn't just a dark colour .

I don't think Waitrose meant any offence at all . So I'd say the complaints are an overreaction.

Suppose you could also argue that all colour ducklings could be labelled "ugly" but I don't think they thought about it that much . And maybe some don't like the theme but that's the theme they chose .

Yeah I do think this is people kicking off for the sake of kicking off tbh. The H&M thing, was quite different and really should not have happened IMO, even moreso when it will have been a fair few higher ups decisions to use that picture and someone should have clicked on.. But this? Not understanding the angst.

Isn't chocolate inherently racist though?

It should not be.

How :suspect:

Also, sort of ontopic, I ****ing hate white chocolate. At xmas I can deal with a tube of the milkybar buttons, but besides that, its awful stuff that makes me feel ill

Milky bars are alright but anything thicker than that for white chocolate is gross and sickly

Blimey have people nothing better to do,it's all in their heads.:nono:

Another grovelling apology to someone who needs a ****ing hobby.

Exactly
I think even if the "ugly duckling" was the white one people would probably still moan about something .
Plus they're just chocolate ducks :shrug: and it's being blown out of proportion.

Every chocolate duck is beautiful in its own way :nono:

Never understood the concept of "ugly duckling"
Ducklings are probably the prettiest bird chicks around so there is no ugly duckling full stop.

The complaint here is ott. Though why two other ducklings have something positive as names and this one doesn't? Stupid. I feel sorry for the dark one.
If I got them as present I'd have to reassure the dark one that it is not ugly before eating it.

Well someone chose to make it brown and that's pretty insensitive. It could be blue, or purple.

I also have my concerns when it comes to coffee :suspect:

Have you literally not heard the story 2S :suspect:.

The Ugly Duckling is about a swan cygnet that somehow gets mixed in with some baby ducks and thus is thought of as ugly by the other ducks (because it's not small yellow and cute like a real duckling); but then it grows up into a swan and everyone is like "omg look beautiful".

It's a metaphor I guess for kids who were teased by other kids for being unattractive / overweight etc. growing up to look totally different as adults.

Try finishing the story some time. I don't mean to ruin the ending, but

It was ages ago.
Cygnets are also pretty so those ducks were racist :fist:
Lookism of the worst kind!

I read it but must have remembered it wrong :blush:

Either way cygnets are also cute just bigger and gray instead of yellow.

Yeah but the point is, he didn't look anything like a duckling

It was this woman

:bored: Livia

Good.

Bloody outrageous shops are selling stuff like this in 2019.

I know, I got the story wrong.

Still, the dark one is not ugly (tho the pink spots are a choice)

That duckling must feel awful.

Quacking puns there Ammi :laugh:

Sad sad people