The egg and wrapper
A Cadbury Creme Egg is a chocolate-like confection produced in the shape of an egg, originating from the British chocolatier Cadbury's. The product consists of a thick chocolate-like shell, containing an enzymatically derived sweet white and yellow filling that resembles fondant which mimics the albumen and yolk of a soft boiled egg from a fowl such as a chicken or goose. The Creme Egg is the best selling confectionery item between New Year's Day and Easter in the UK, with annual sales in excess of 200 million and a brand value of approximately £55 million. However, in 2016 sales plummeted after the controversial decision to change the recipe from the original Dairy Milk chocolate to a cheaper substitute, with reports of a loss of more than £6m in sales.
Creme Eggs are produced by Cadbury UK in Birmingham, West Midlands, UK, by The Hershey Company in the United States and by Cadbury Adams in Canada. They are sold by Mondelēz International in all markets except the US, where the Hershey Company has the local marketing rights. At the Bournville factory in Birmingham, in the UK, they are manufactured at a rate of 1.5 million per day. The Creme Egg was also previously manufactured in New Zealand but, since 2009, they are imported from the UK. A YouGov poll saw the Creme Egg ranked the most famous confectionary in the UK.
While filled eggs were first manufactured by the Cadbury Brothers in 1923, the Creme Egg in its current form was introduced in 1963. Initially sold as Fry's Creme Eggs (incorporating the Fry's brand), they were renamed "Cadbury's Creme Eggs" in 1971.
Product specification[]
Packaging[]
Creme eggs are usually sold individually but are also available in boxes containing a varying quantity of eggs depending on the country the packaging is intended for. The foil wrapping of the eggs was traditionally green, red, yellow and blue in colour in the United Kingdom and Ireland, though green was removed and purple replaced blue early in the 21st century. In the United States, some green is incorporated into the design, which previously featured the product's mascot—the Creme Egg Chick. As of 2015, the packaging in Canada has turned into a 34g, purple, red and yellow soft plastic shell.
Availability[]
Creme eggs are available annually between 1 January and Easter Day. In the UK in the 1980s, Cadbury made Creme Eggs available year-round but sales dropped and they returned to seasonal availability. In 2018 white chocolate versions of the Creme Eggs were made available. These eggs were not given a wrapper that clearly marked them as white chocolate eggs and were mixed in with the normal Creme Eggs in the United Kingdom. Individuals who discovered an egg would win money via a ticket that had a code printed on it inside of the wrapper.
Manufacture in New Zealand[]
Creme Eggs were manufactured in New Zealand at the Cadbury factory in Dunedin from 1983 to 2009. Cadbury in New Zealand and Australia went through a restructuring process which most Cadbury products previously produced in New Zealand being manufactured instead at Cadbury factories in Australia. The Dunedin plant later received a $69 million upgrade to specialise in boxed products such as Cadbury Roses, and Creme Eggs were no longer produced there. The result of the changes meant that Creme Eggs were instead imported from the United Kingdom. The change has also seen the range of Creme Eggs available for sale decreased. The size also dropped from 40g to 39g in this time. The response from New Zealanders has not been positive. Complaints have included the filling not being as runny as the New Zealand version.
Manufacturing process[]
Cadbury Creme Eggs are manufactured as two half-eggs synthesized from a chocolate-like substance that is subsequently formed into to two half shells, each of which is filled with a white fondant, then topped with a smaller amount of yellow fondant, with the egg being filled in such a way that the fondant colours mimic egg yolk and egg white. Both halves are then quickly joined together and cooled, the chocolate-like substance bonding together in the process. The solid eggs are removed from the moulds and wrapped in foil. The filling, to be more precise, is inverted sugar syrup, produced by processing the fondant with invertase.
In 2015 Cadbury's milk chocolate recipe was changed and released by Kraft who by then owned Cadbury. The traditional dairy milk shell of the eggs was to be replaced with a cocoa based shell. One other manufacturing difference that was made and that was the fact that there was no longer going to be the production of gold coin chocolates at Christmas time.