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A UK grocery store has been forced to apologise over a “racist” Easter product.

Customers complained the dark chocolate one was labelled “ugly”.

The $14.60 box set of milk, white and dark chocolate ducklings has upset some people after they were individually marked “fluffy”, “crispy” and “ugly”.

duck choc

The product was temporarily pulled from shelves by the high-end supermarket to allow time to redesign the packaging after a “small number” of customers were offended, shared The Sun.

The Waitrose trio of chocolate Easter ducklings are now available to buy again in shops and online — minus the controversial labels.

Although not made explicitly clear by supermarket bosses, it’s thought the name “ugly” may have been chosen as a reference to the classic fairytale The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen.

The fairytale is about a “stubby and brown” duckling who is mocked and shamed by other ducklings but grows into a beautiful white swan.

One Twitter user shared a picture of the chocolate product and wrote: “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.”

Another person wrote: “Thousands of other options … Why ugly?”

A Waitrose spokeswoman apologised for any offence the packaging might have caused.

“We are sorry for any upset caused by the name of this product. It was absolutely not our intention to cause any offence,” the spokeswoman said.

“We removed the product from sale several weeks ago while we changed the labelling, and our ducklings are now back on sale.”

Do you think it is racist?

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  • Oh for goodness sake….. get over it people

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  • Extreme reaction, just not possible to please all, all of the time.

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  • That choccy duck will become a beautiful swan if only you don’t eat it.

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  • Not racist at all. Over reacting yet again. Dunno why the media push these stories

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  • Oh come one. Everyone with common sense would know it’s in reference to the Ugly Duckling. How silly, taking things too far

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  • An ugly duckling reference. Would it have made a difference if the packaging was alternated?

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  • Racist, no I don’t think so however the words ugly in itself is just wrong.

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  • Racist chocolate!?! What will we be outraged by next? I just thought yum… dark chocolate! I’d love that.

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  • I can see how it was a stupid thing to name it but seriously people are offended by everything these days. I think people really just need to get over it.

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  • Think all this racist remarks are going over the top! black and white eggs ducks etc everything easter, who cares There has been black and white chocolate for some time and that is he way it is not racist..The ducks Chrispy,fluffy, ugly I would eat the ugly cos not so or neccesary. It reminds ne of the good .the bad and the ugly saying and movie- not feeling things so stop sweating the small stff

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  • They’re ducks… overreaction??? My first thought was the ugly duckling before reading that part of the article. Not a name I would have encouraged my youngster to try reading though. Glad the store found a solution quickly and removed the labels.

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  • I just see chocolate but maybe they could have rethought the labels, given the PC climate we live in.

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  • I don’t think that it is racist, but they certainly could have come up with better names.

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  • I’m sure that wasn’t meant to be racist. If they labelled them Milk, White and Dark chocolate I’m sure some would have complained about that as well.

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  • Admit it’s a silly angle from the marketing point of view but I don’t think it was ever intended to be divisive.

    Reply

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