Supermarket Forced To Remove 'Racist' Easter Chocolate Ducklings From Shelves After Complaints

Waitrose came up with a duckling trio product with regard to Easter, but they had to pull it off their shelves quickly. The set of three ducklings were made of white, milk, and dark chocolate, and were described as "fluffy", "crispy" and "ugly" respectively. They were being sold for $10. 47 (£8). According to The Sun, the product was temporarily pulled off the shelf because a "small number" of customers were offended. They completely plan on redesigning the product cover and relaunching it soon. Which they did, as you can now buy the Waitrose duckling trio in shops and online.

Though there's been no clarity on why the dark chocolate duckling was named 'ugly', people have been assuming that it could be named after the classic fairy tale The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen. The classic tale has been adapted into a number of media including song, musical, opera, and animated film. The song is about an ugly duckling who was mocked and avoided by other duckings because he was not like the rest of them.  Later he discovers he is not a duck when he sheds his brown feathers and grows into a beautiful white swan. 

The lyrics say, "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 offense. We removed the product from sale several weeks ago while we changed the labeling and our ducklings are now back on sale."    

A lot of people took to Twitter to share their views. Most people seemed to agree with the fact that it was offensive, while some pointed out how there are a lot of things to be offended about than chocolate ducklings. Mandy Moo said, "Get a grip, people. There are more important things to get offended by in this world that chocolate ducks."  DT wrote, "Glad you've alerted me to these vile symbols of racism in the UK. There I was thinking they were chocolate ducks."

On Facebook, Rachel Rogers commented, "Crispy Duck = yummy in pancakes often get from Chinese - yummy everyone likes milk chocolate. Fluffy Duck= adorable and cute way kids describe a duckling, cute and sweet like white chocolate. Ugly Duck = the story of an ugly duckling growing to be a gorgeous swan. In this case, dark chocolates being sneakily delicious." Sean Byrnnzy added, "Literally nothing racist about this at all. And I’m a top fan so my opinion means a lot more than you peasants."

Rob West said, "I often wonder if these things have really happened or if they’re just made up to sell 'news' as people do most certainly get their knickers in a twist over these 'stories'". Shannon Thrower asked,  "How the f is this racist? They are “chocolate” colored. Chocolate can be any color - I got pink chocolate at Valentine’s Day - I’m not f in offended!!!" Kelly Bannister wrote,  "I'm offended because someone was offended by nothing!!! They are chocolate ducks for crying out loud!!"