When Popular Candy Companies Dropped Word 'Easter' From Holiday Packaging, Christian Chocolatiers Offered This Alternative

Cadbury Chocolate eggs are an Easter staple in the U.K., and many Americans have also adopted the creamy treat as part of their holiday tradition. But the chocolate company didn’t ask its customers when it decided to quietly pull the word “Easter” from the packaging of its holiday products. And apparently Cadbury is not the only company to do so.

Image source: Meaningful Chocolate Company

According to Telegraph, it’s become somewhat of a trend to stroll through a festive supermarket candy isle during the Easter season without seeing one actual mention of the holiday. Instead, one is likely to see faith-neutral “chocolate eggs.”

A group of Christians who noticed the removal came up with a creative solution. The makers of the “Real Easter Egg” brought the perceived war on Easter to light with a line of Christian-themed confections.

The Manchester-based Meaningful Chocolate Company emerged six years ago with the goal of spreading the Christian message through a variety of Easter and Advent products. Instead of politically correct bunnies, flowers and chicks, Meaningful Chocolate Company openly declares Christ as the reason for all of the festivity.

But since the company first walked onto the Easter candy scene, its founder, David Marshall said the descriptions on other company’s Easter treats have become more and more bleak.

As an example, the company mentioned Cadbury’s Easter Egg Trail Pack, whose name was changed to “Egg Hunt Pack.” In addition, this season’s label on Nestlé’s Quality Street Easter egg reads: “Large Milk Chocolate Egg.” Another Nestlé product, the Milkybar Easter Egg, now has the blunt name, “Milkybar White Chocolate Egg,” proving that Cadbury is not the only company to blame for the pull.

“It looks like there is a trend," Marshall told Telegraph.

“A lot of businesses are not comfortable with the religious aspect of the festival,” he continued. “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.”

A spokesman for Nestlé told Telegraph that there had been “no deliberate decision” to remove the word “Easter” from its holiday products and assured that customers would make an “automatic” connection even if the word was not explicitly mentioned.

“Chocolate eggs have been synonymous with Easter and the Easter story since the beginning of the last century and the association is now an automatic one," he said. “There has been no deliberate decision to drop the word Easter from our products and the name is still widely used at Nestlé.”

Cadbury has also denied accusations that it has caved to secular pressure and removed Easter from its iconic chocolates, stating that the word "Easter" still appears, if not prominently, on the back of its creme egg wrappers:

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Front page photo courtesy of Shutterstock.