Cadbury Creme Egg

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.

New packaging introduced in Canada (2015).

Creme eggs are available annually between 1 January and Easter Day.[7][8] In the UK in the 1980s, Cadbury made Creme Eggs available year-round but sales dropped and they returned to seasonal availability.[9] 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.[10] Individuals who discovered an egg would win money via a ticket that had a code printed on it inside of the wrapper.[10]

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, with 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.[1] 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.[11]

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.[12] The filling, to be more precise, is inverted sugar syrup, produced by processing the fondant with invertase.[13][14]

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 replaced with a cocoa based shell.[15]

A whole and split caramel egg

Cadbury has introduced many variants to the original Creme Egg, including:

• Border Creme Eggs. The first variant, wrapped in various colours of tartan foil and containing chocolate fondant. Introduced as "Fry's Border Creme Eggs" in 1970, rebranded as "Cadbury Border Creme Eggs" in 1974 and discontinued in 1981.
• Mini Creme Eggs (bite-sized Creme Eggs)
• Caramel Eggs (chocolate egg with a caramel filling), launched in 1994[16]
• Caramilk Egg (Canadian market only)
• Mini Caramel Eggs (bite-sized Caramel Eggs)
• Chocolate Creme Eggs (chocolate fondant filling), introduced in 1999
• Orange Creme Eggs (Creme Eggs with a hint of orange flavour)
• 'Berry' Creme Eggs (magenta wrapper and pink fondant, sold circa 1987 in Australia)
• Mint Creme Eggs (green "yolk" and mint flavour chocolate)
• Dairy Milk with Creme Egg bars
• Creme Egg Fondant in a Narrow Cardboard Tube (limited edition)
• Creme Egg ice cream with a fondant sauce in milk chocolate
• Dream Eggs (New Zealand). White chocolate with white chocolate fondant filling. Discontinued in 2010.[1]
• Cadbury McFlurry (British, Irish, Canadian and Australian McDonald's only) McFlurry soft serve mix with Creme Egg & chocolate filling. In the UK, it is currently released as part of McDonald's' Monopoly promotions.
• Creme Egg Twisted (Britain, Ireland, Australia and Canada) Available all year round. It was introduced to Australia in 2010 but was quickly discontinued.
• Holiday Ornament Creme Egg
• Mad About Chocolate Egg (Australia and New Zealand). Purple wrapper, milk chocolate with chocolate fudge filling. Discontinued in 2010.[1]
• Creme Egg Pots Of Joy - melted Cadbury milk chocolate with a fondant layer
• Screme Egg Pots Of Joy - melted Cadbury milk chocolate but with a layer of Screme Egg fondant
• Creme Egg Layers Of Joy - A layered sharing dessert with Cadbury milk chocolate, chocolate mousse, chocolate chip cookie and fondant dessert with a creamy topping.
• Peppermint Egg (New Zealand). Discontinued in 2010.[1]
• Giant Creme Eggs, a thick chocolate shell with white and caramel fondant filling. Manufactured in North America. Discontinued in 2006.
• Creme Egg Splats - fried egg shaped pieces of milk chocolate filled with fondant.
• Screme Egg - traditional milk chocolate shell with a white and green fondant center - available for Halloween[17]
• Screme Egg Minis - Mini version of the Screme Egg - available for Halloween[18]
• Fudgee-O Egg (Canada). Introduced at the start of 2015. Filled with a fudge creme centre.
• Oreo Cream Egg (Canada). Introduced in 2016. Filled with a white cream centre containing Oreo cookie crumbs.
• Ghost Egg - Same as normal Creme Egg, but without the "yolk".
• White Chocolate Creme Egg - Creme Egg, but with white chocolate replacing the milk chocolate. Released in 2018 as part of a UK promotion.[19]

Other products

• Jaffa Egg (New Zealand) Dark chocolate with orange filling
• Marble Egg (New Zealand) Dairy Milk and Dream Chocolate swirled together
• Caramilk Egg – Manufactured in New Zealand, a mixture of caramel and white chocolate with a creamy centre of the same flavour.
• Chips Ahoy! Egg (Canada). Introduced in 2017. Filled with a chocolate chip cookie dough centre.

During an interview in a 2007 episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brien, actor B. J. Novak drew attention to the fact that American market Cadbury Creme Eggs had decreased in size, despite the official Cadbury website stating otherwise.[20] American Creme Eggs at the time weighed 34 g and contained 150 calories.[21] Before 2006, the eggs marketed by Hershey were identical to the UK version, weighing 39 g and containing 170 calories.[22][23]

In 2015, the British Cadbury company under the American Mondelēz International conglomerate announced that it had changed the formula of the Cadbury Creme Egg by replacing its Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate with "standard cocoa mix chocolate". It had also reduced the packaging from 6 eggs to 5 with a less than proportionate decrease in price.[24][25][26] This resulted in a large number of complaints from consumers.[27] Analysts at IRI found that Cadbury lost more than $12 million in Creme Egg sales in the UK.[28]

In 2012, Cadbury parodied the Olympic Games by using Creme Eggs instead of athletes. The first advert was 31 seconds long and consists of an Opening Ceremony, performed by stripped and packed Creme Eggs. Each other advert contained a Creme Egg trying to ‘release the goo’ whilst in an Olympic event. An online game was created by Cadbury, so the public could play the ‘Goo Games’. Six events were available to play and each of them was shown as a cartoon sketch. It took place between 1 January to 4 April 2012.

In 2016, Cadbury opened a pop-up café titled "Crème de la Creme Egg Café" in London.[31] Tickets for the café sold out within an hour of being published online.[32] The café on Greek Street, Soho, was open every Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 22 January to 6 March 2016.

In 2018, Cadbury opened a pop-up camp. The camp in Last Days of Shoreditch, Old Street was open every Thursday to Sunday from 19 January, to 18 February 2018 [33]