A UK grocery store has been forced to apologise over a “racist” Easter product.

Customers complained the dark chocolate one was labelled “ugly”.

The $14.60 box set of milk, white and dark chocolate ducklings has upset some people after they were individually marked “fluffy”, “crispy” and “ugly”.

The product was temporarily pulled from shelves by the high-end supermarket to allow time to redesign the packaging after a “small number” of customers were offended, shared The Sun.

The Waitrose trio of chocolate Easter ducklings are now available to buy again in shops and online — minus the controversial labels.

Although not made explicitly clear by supermarket bosses, it’s thought the name “ugly” may have been chosen as a reference to the classic fairytale The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen.

The fairytale is about a “stubby and brown” duckling who is mocked and shamed by other ducklings but grows into a beautiful white swan.

One Twitter user shared a picture of the chocolate product and wrote: “Crispy, Fluffy and Ugly — trio of Easter ducklings at Waitrose.

“Ugly is the dark one on the right.

“Overheard women saying ‘this is not right’, I agree, doesn’t look good at all.”

Another person wrote: “Thousands of other options … Why ugly?”

A Waitrose spokeswoman apologised for any offence the packaging might have caused.

“We are sorry for any upset caused by the name of this product. It was absolutely not our intention to cause any offence,” the spokeswoman said.

“We removed the product from sale several weeks ago while we changed the labelling, and our ducklings are now back on sale.”

Waitrose apologised over “racist” Easter ducks -I mean really – why did they have to call the dark brown one ugly? Surely whoever thought of this idea really NEEDS to wake up & see that of course it would take offence!

— Anna (@BartolomeuAnna) April 9, 2019

Hugely disappointed in @Waitrose for the subtle (racist) message that dark coloured Easter ducks are ‘ugly’
So unnecessary – don’t they have a diversity team for goodness sakes??
Waitrose accused of racism over ‘ugly’ Easter chocolate ducklinghttps://t.co/x2cqabZlTj

— Bien Soeur (@BienSoeur) April 9, 2019

Waitrose should be absolutely ashamed of theirselves for apologising and bending over for these PC snowflakes.
The people that take issue and claim racism because of a chocolate duck clearly have the problem within them. https://t.co/sFrcX9uXDg

— marketcrasher (@marketcrasher1) April 9, 2019

What a joke! It’s chocolate, no a wee black wean!
It wouldn’t be an issue if the white duck was called Ugly. So why is this. We, as PEOPLE, are not chocolate… Waitrose apologises and pulls ‘racist’ Easter chocolate from shelves https://t.co/WeLG0Ri7hv

— Stacey Martin (@StaceyMartin89) April 9, 2019

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