The Creme Egg wars – which side are you on?

Ever since 1963, Creme Eggs have provoked strong opinions among consumers. Here, a fan and a foe make their respective cases. But where do you stand?

Dressed in red, sumptuous purple and glistening gold, the Cadbury Creme Egg is an Easter icon. For many, springtime wouldn’t be the same without them. According to Cadbury’s parent company, Mondelez International, around 220 million Creme Eggs are sold in Britain every year (44 per cent of the global total). Not bad for chocolate which is allegedly only on sale between New Year’s Day and Easter Sunday.

For others though, the Creme Egg – 177 calories and 26g sugar apiece – represents everything that’s wrong with modern chocolate.

The contents of the fondant filling went viral last year after unassuming customers realised it was composed almost entirely of sugar. It had been originally intended to filled the eggs with real cream, but practical issues forced the chocolatiers to use instead a “creme” made with sugar, glucose syrup, inverted sugar syrup, dried egg white and flavouring, and the interior has gone unchanged for decades.

The chocolate itself is another matter. In 2015, Cadbury changed the formulation of the Creme Egg’s outer shell from Dairy Milk to “standard cocoa mix chocolate”. Simultaneously, it reduced the number of eggs in a packet from the half-dozen found in real egg cartons to an unsatisfying five. The backlash was swift and sales suffered.

The fury was overblown, however, believes i Sweet disagreement: Jack and Mia make their Creme Egg feelings abundantly clear

Andrew Baker, author of From Bean To Bar: A Chocolate Lover’s Guide to Britain. “Standard cocoa mix chocolate is as ordinary as chocolate gets,” Baker explains. “I can’t think why there was all the fuss. It’s not as if Dairy Milk is good chocolate,” he argues. “The Creme Egg has never been a quality chocolate experience; it’s a sugar hit. Whatever chocolate you use will be overwhelmed by the sweetness of the filling. Accept that,” he advises, “and enjoy the sugar.”

The Creme Egg was originally called ‘Fry’s Creme Egg’. Fry’s merged with Cadbury’s in 1919 but maintained operational independence and struck gold with the current egg formulation in 1963. Fry’s was eventually dissolved (the factory where the first Creme Eggs were made was shut down in 2011) and by 1971, the eggs were known as Cadbury’s Creme Eggs.

The ovoid sweetmeat’s success was bolstered by 1985’s “How do you eat yours?” campaign, inviting the public to share how they enjoyed the confectionery – biting straight through it, scooping or sucking out the innards, even eating it with toast “soldiers”.

Similar campaigns have preserved the Creme Egg’s niche in the national food culture. Much loved? That depends on your point of view. JR