Supermarket staff and shoppers have been accused of unwrapping Cadbury’s Creme Eggs and putting them back on the shelf in an attempt to win £2,000.
Chocolate fans went wild last week when Cadbury’s announced that they will be selling a limited number of white chocolate Creme Eggs in the run up to Easter this year.
There are only between 350 to 400 of the white chocolate goodies on sale – and they will be hidden in normal Creme Egg wrappers.
Shoppers have been tweeting images of rewrapped Creme Eggs and accusing shoppers and staff of unwrapping the chocolate and putting them back on the shelf
But any lucky chocolate fans find them, they could also be in with a chance of winning up to £2,000.
The trick is reminiscent of Willy Wonka’s promotion in the Roald Dahl book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when the chocolate maker hid five golden tickets in chocolate bars for children to find.
But the gimmick may have backfired, as it appears people are now unwrapping the classic Easter treat and putting them back of shelves if they are not the winning ones.
Shoppers from all over the country have been sharing pictures online of apparently tampered with Cadbury Creme Eggs
Scott Bartlett tweeted saying the competition was causing ‘unwrapped and unwanted’ Creme Eggs
Ryan Reeves, from Essex, tweeted a picture of pile of tampered with eggs and said ‘@sainsburys The search for a white chocolate creme egg has gone to your employees heads clearly’.
Another shopper found unwrapped Creme Eggs in a Tesco Express in Essex.
‘I opened one of the other boxes that was stacked in the store and they were the same. I can’t see how that could have been done by shoppers!’ he told The Sun.
Another user tweeted: ‘This white creme egg thing just means every single creme egg has been unwrapped and touched by some randoms in tesco’
Every white egg will be worth at least £100, according to Cadbury.
One of the eggs on sale at a Co-op supermarket will be worth £2,000, while 33 will be worth £1,000 and the rest £100.
There are 500 million Creme Eggs produced a year and about 333 million of those are sold in the UK, meaning shoppers will have about a 1 in 850,000 chance of winning a prize.
Paul Lang said he initially thought there was a production problem with the Creme Eggs, but later realised it was due to people searching for the £2000 prize
Shoppers across the country have shared pictures of the Creme Eggs on social media, saying people are unwrapping sweets in the store in the hope of winning a white chocolate treat
Kate Flood noticed on New Year’s Day that people had already unwrapped the Creme Eggs in a shop in the hope to win £1000
Hoping to bring some cash into the New Year. One Twitter user noticed that all the Creme Eggs were unwrapped in one shop
Freelance writer Paul Lang tweeted a picture of some unwrapped Creme Eggs saying at first he thought there was a production problem, but he’s since realised they were unwrapped due to the confectioners competition.
On New Year’s Day, Kate Flood from Manchester tweeted a picture of Creme Eggs saying ‘Shout out to the person whose first life choice of 2018 was to stand in the middle of the shop and unwrap all the Creme Eggs to find a prize’.
Tasmin Dawes tweeted: ‘Every single creme egg in the co-op clearly already been opened and re wrapped…. somethings telling me this definitely isn’t a white one’
Trainee Pilot Josh Slesser, from Newcastle tweeted at Cadbury to express his disappointment at the apparent wrapping and unwrapping of the chocolate eggs
Another eagle-eyed shopping spotted unwrapped chocolate in a branch of co-op.
Tasmin Dawes tweeted: ‘Every single creme egg in the co-op clearly already been opened and re wrapped…. somethings telling me this definitely isn’t a white one’.
Trainee Pilot Josh Slesser, from Newcastle tweeted at Cadbury to express his disappointment too. ‘Well not only do these look smaller, I see people have already started unwrapping the foil to look for the white creme eggs’ he said.
The white chocolate Creme Egg will have the same gooey fondant yolk centre as the classic Creme Eggs, but will have a white chocolate shell instead of a milk chocolate one.
They are available to find in stores now until April 1.