Shoppers pig sick as all Percy sweets go veggie

IT’S a range of goodies the UK has been sweet on for 27 years.

But now Marks and Spencer’s Percy Pig treats have hit a sour note with some fans who claim ham-fisted bosses have ruined it by making it vegetarian.

The chain has changed the recipe of the popular fruit juice-flavoured gums to ditch pork gelatine. M&S insists the change has had no impact on the taste of the sweets, which cost £1.65 for 170g, but some customers angrily disagree. The company already had a vegetarian version of Percy Pig but now the whole range is gelatine-free.

One shopper named Amy tweeted: ‘We have LOVED Percy Pigs for years. However, we bought a pack recently and myself and my children strongly disliked the taste and we didn’t eat them. Have the ingredients changed? Is that why they don’t taste nice any more? Huge shame if they’ve changed after all these years!’

Another customer Richard Brackstone posted online: ‘Are me and my family the only ones outraged by the recipe change to Percy Pigs? Quite frankly they’re now disgusting – they taste like chemicals.’

Not all consumers were angry with the change. Elli Cockayne wrote: ‘Well done M&S for this change!! Helping the planet one little ingredient at the time.’ An M&S spokesman said the taste remains ‘100 per cent the same’. They added: ‘After a lot of hard work (and tasting) we’ve finally perfected a 100 per cent vegetarian Percy–- something our customers have been asking us for for a while.’ Percy Pig first appeared in M&S stores in 1992 and the sweets have won a huge fan base. A Percy Pig appreciation society on Facebook has 250,000 members. Although the gums are now vegetarian they still contain beeswax – making them unsuitable for vegans, who avoid all animal products.