Waitrose apologises after ‘ugly’ dark chocolate duckling sparks race row

Waitrose has apologised after it was accused of selling “racist” chocolate Easter ducklings, even as others are calling the criticism overblown.

People complained about a set of three chocolate ducks which included the white chocolate ducking called “fluffy”, a milk chocolate called “crispy” and a dark chocolate one called “ugly”.

Twitter users expressed their ire online, with one person saying it “doesn’t look good” for the retail giant:

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. Thousands of other options... why #ugly?????

Many people thought that calling a dark chocolate duckling 'ugly' was racist

Others argued that the duck's name comes from Hans Christian Anderson's story The Ugly Duckling - not racism

And other people think the furore is a bit ridiculous

In response to the complaints, Waitrose temporarily withdrew the ducklings from sale , before redesigning the packaging and removing the names.

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.

More: Brexit supporter leaves Farage dumbfounded after saying we should ‘revoke Article 50’

More: Brexiteer MP Mark Francois wants another vote on Theresa May's deal and everyone is pointing the irony