Cadbury has been forced to slap down furious complaints from misinformed customers that its Easter eggs are Halal-certified.
The global chocolate firm has had to endure a barrage of “anti-Christian” conspiracy theories, spending hours on Twitter correcting outraged users.
It all started with a picture that surfaces every year at Easter, of a Cadbury employee holding a certificate showing its products are halal-certified.
But, as a Cadbury insider told The Huffington Post UK, the picture is many years old and originates from the firm’s Asia-Pacifc market.
Given the significantly larger Muslim population in that part of the world, “there probably is a call for halal certification”, they said.
“People don’t understand the difference between [our UK and Asian markets].”
Nonetheless, the image is being republished thousands of times on social media in Britain, leading some to attack Cadbury and accuse it of “Muslim appeasement”.
The English Defence League even shared the picture on its Facebook page, using it as a reason to urge its followers to “boycott Cadbury”.
Leaving Cadbury to remind the outraged mob that chocolate contains no animal products - “in the same way that standard food like bread or water would be”.
Here’s a taster of how many people Cadbury is having to correct.
While a digital marketer who identified himself as an old employee behind Cadbury Twitter account revealed: