REPORTS TODAY THAT chocolate company Cadbury has “quietly dropped” the word Easter from its chocolate eggs may be a bit over the top.

Following on from a story in the UK’s Daily Telegraph, which states that the company has quietly gotten rid of the word “Easter”, Irish media ran a story suggesting the same.

The suggestion first seems to have been made by The Meaningful Chocolate Company, a Manchester-based Christian organisation which makes the Real Easter Egg – a chocolate egg with a Christian message, the profits from which go to charity.

The company claimed in an interview with the Telegraph that the word Easter has slowly been disappearing from chocolate eggs over the past number of years.

“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,” the company’s founder David Marshall told the Telegraph.

But Cadbury (and parent company Mondelez International) has denied any policy directing that the word be dropped from the marketing of their products.

“Easter is stated on our Easter Eggs on the back of pack – 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,” a spokesperson said TheJournal.ie.

It is very obvious through the packaging that it is an Easter egg. We do not have a policy to remove the word ‘Easter’ from our packs or marketing. Some of our marketing states Easter and some just Egg.”

Packaging

The latest packaging for this year’s round of eggs contain no mention of Easter on the front:

But the products have some reference to Easter in smaller print in the back:

As well as this, on social media Cadbury makes frequent mentions of Easter in its marketing:

As with many brands, it’s fair to assume that changes are often made to the marketing and packaging of Cadbury products. In recent years the word “Easter” hasn’t appeared on the front of the packaging of the majority of Cadbury’s eggs.

So, has Cadbury dropped Easter from its eggs? While the word doesn’t appear on the front, there are cracks in claims that it’s gone altogether.

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