Terry's Chocolate Orange
 | |
| Product type | Confection |
|---|---|
| Owner | Mondelēz International |
| Country | York, England |
| Introduced | 1932 |
| Markets | Worldwide |
| Previous owners |
Terry's Kraft General Foods Kraft Foods |
Terry's Chocolate Orange is a chocolate product created by Terry's in 1932 at the Chocolate Works factory in York, England, and made by Mondelēz International since 2012.
Development
The company opened the Art Deco-style factory The Chocolate Works in 1926, and began launching new products.[1] These included the Desert Chocolate Apple (1926), Terry's All Gold (1931) and the Chocolate Orange (1932). [2] At the onset of World War II, confectionery production was immediately halted. The factory was taken over by F Hills and Sons of Manchester as a shadow factory, to manufacture and repair aircraft propeller blades. With the factory handed back to the company post war, production was difficult due to continued rationing in the United Kingdom, and limited imports of raw cocoa. As a result, in 1954 production of the chocolate apple was phased out in favour of increased production of the chocolate orange.[1]
In the North American market, where it has had a variety of importers over the years, it was briefly sold as a Tobler (maker of the Toblerone) product.
Since 2005 and the closure of the Terry factory in York, United Kingdom, Chocolate Orange products have been manufactured near Jankowice, Poland.[3] However, Terry's Chocolate Orange is not available in Polish shops.
In 1979, Terry's launched the Chocolate Lemon, but it was withdrawn three years later.[2]
Structure
The Terry's Chocolate Orange comprises an orange-shaped ball of chocolate mixed with orange oil, divided into 20 "segments", similar to a real orange, and wrapped in orange-skin patterned foil. When packaged, the segments are stuck together firmly in the centre; therefore, prior to unwrapping, the ball is traditionally tapped severely on a hard surface to cause the segments to separate from each other (dubbed "Tap and Unwrap" or "Whack and Unwrap").
As a side-note, the pieces of Terry's Chocolate Orange are mathematically not segments. They should be mathematically described as "wedges".
Spin-offs
The Chocolate Orange brand has seen spin-off products, currently including:
- Chocolate Orange bar: a bar of six segments, initially produced with smooth vertical segments (similar to a Toblerone bar), then, later, with textured segments that mimic the traditional orange shape.
- Chocolate Orange minis: a bag of small segments
- Chocolate Orange White Eggs: egg shaped white chocolate versions of Chocolate Orange that were for one Easter
- Segsations: individual segments of chocolate in different flavours, including: milk chocolate, puffed rice, honeycomb, cornflake, white chocolate and a "double seg" of layered milk and dark chocolate, all flavoured with orange oil.
- Segsations Mini Eggs: individual foil wrapped eggs of chocolate in same flavours as Segsations, for Easter
- Chocolate Orange – Egg & Spoon: a milk chocolate egg filled with an orange fondant filling (similar to Cadbury's Cream Egg)
Advertising
The Chocolate Orange product is known for its unusual marketing, which is usually at its heaviest around Christmas. At one time it was estimated that the Chocolate Orange was found in a tenth of British Christmas stockings.[4] Actress Dawn French has fronted numerous campaigns for the brand, often in a posed scene of defending and hiding "her" Chocolate Orange from others. Famous marketing phrases include:
- Tap it and unwrap it (since replaced with "whack and unwrap")
- It's not Terry's, it's mine
- Don't tap it... Whack it!
More recent advertisements (after the rebranding) do not feature French and contain the new slogan "Round but not round for long" (some include the Countdown theme tune). The newest advertising campaign in the United Kingdom features various situations in which people are trying to break the segments of their Terry's Chocolate Orange apart with the slogan "Smash it to pieces, love it to bits".
Product range
- Terry's Desert Chocolate Apple (1926–1954 precursor to the Orange)[2]
- Terry's Chocolate Lemon (short-lived 1979-1980s variant)[2]
- Terry's Chocolate Orange Dark (formerly 'Plain')
- Terry's Chocolate Orange Snowball (white chocolate)
- Terry's Chocolate Orange Mint (Discontinued 2012)
- Terry's Chocolate Orange Toffee
- Terry's Chocolate Orange Bars (chocolate bars)
- Terry's Chocolate Orange Mini segments/Segsations (individually wrapped segments)
- Terry's Chocolate Orange White Egg
- Terry's Chocolate Orange Flavour Carte D'Or ice cream (no longer in production)
- Terry's Chocolate Orange Tangy
- Terry's Chocolate Orange Cookies
- Terry's Chocolate Orange Exploding Candy
- Terry's Chocolate Orange Siesta
- Terry's Chocolate Orange Hazelnut
- Terry's Chocolate Orange Raspberry
- Terry's Chocolate Orange White Chocolate Smasher
- Terry's Chocolate Orange Toffee Crunch
- Terry's Chocolate Orange Birthday Cake
- Terry's Chocolate Orange Orange
- Terry's Chocolate Orange Ice-Creams (currently sold as limited edition)
Changes to product weight in 2016
In 2016 (May 29) the UK product size was changed from 175g down to 157g.
The current Guinness World Record holder for the fastest time to eat a Terry's Chocolate Orange, Adrian Blake , has said that the decision to shrink the chocolate orange would not only harm the experience of enjoying the product, but also make future challenges to his achievement unfair.
References
- 1 2 "The Chocolate Works". NeolithicSea.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-06-27.
- 1 2 3 4 "Terry's Confections (Courtesy of Kraft Foods Archives)". docslide.us. Retrieved 2016-01-07.
- ↑ Delgado, Martin. "How long before Cadbury's chocolate is made in this Polish factory?". London: Mail Online. Retrieved 2012-10-13.
- ↑ "Chocolate history". VisitYork.org. Retrieved 2012-06-27.
External links
Media related to Terry's Chocolate Orange at Wikimedia Commons