Cadbury denies religion has to do with dropping 'Easter' from Easter eggs
PUBLISHED24/03/2016 | 07:0
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The secularisation of Irish society has nothing to do with the word Easter being quietly banished from Easter egg boxes this year, a leading chocolate manufacturer claims.
Unlike the word 'Christmas' which has been replaced by the ubiquitous reference to “the holidays” when referring to the birth of Christ in North America in order not to offend non-Christians, not prominently displaying the word 'Easter' on the packaging of Easter eggs this year was done because the egg is exactly what is says on the tin, a spokesperson for Cadbury claimed last night.
“Most of our Easter eggs don’t say Easter or egg on the front as we don’t feel the need to tell people this – it is very obvious through the packaging that it is an Easter egg,” said the unnamed spokesperson, who denied that political or religious correctness is behind the move.
But just in case people aren’t sure what they’re actually biting into, the word Easter is still there in small print on the back of the packaging to reassure people that they are actually eating a chocolate Easter egg.
Yet mysteriously, Cadbury’s Easter Egg Trail Pack has unquestionably been replaced this year by Cadbury Egg Hunt Pack while its Crème Egg, shaped like an Easter egg and marketed for years as only being available until Easter, has no reference to the annual Christian holiday other than as a deadline to purchase the product. But the spokesperson couldn’t say precisely when and why the packaging has changed.
But Cadbury isn’t the only chocolate manufacturer that has seemingly taken the Easter out of Easter egg this year.
Rival producer Nestle now sells a “Large Milk Chocolate Egg with Quality Street inside” instead of a “Quality Street Easter Egg” and its Milkybar Easter Egg is now a “Milkybar White Chocolate Egg.” Officials from Nestle couldn’t be reached for comment last night however a spokesman told the UK Telegraph “the association is now an automatic one.”
“There has been no deliberate decision to drop the word Easter from our products and the name is still widely used at Nestle,” he said.
However, David Marshall, founder of The Meaningful Chocolate Company in Manchester which sells Easter eggs and advent calenders with Christian messages, told the UK Telegraph that secularisation is indeed behind what lies beneath the new packaging trend.
“A lot of businesses are not comfortable with the religious aspect of the festival,” he said.
“If they want to make their product as attractive to as many people as possible it could well be that they want to remove references to the Christian festival because that will be seen as attaching to one faith tradition.”
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