If you had a feeling something was wrong with your tub of Quality Street, you were correct.
For the past few years, Stephen Hull, who manages the Inequality Street X (previously Twitter) account, has been evaluating the tastes in Christmas treat tins.
Stephen and his supporters calculate the number of each chocolate in each package of Roses, Quality Street, Heroes, and Celebrations, identifying discrepancies and demanding answers.
One Quality Street customer, who goes by ShortFuse89 on X, bought a pouch rather than a classic tub, counted all of the sweets they found and divided them into groups.
He shared a picture of the chocolatey results, showing that there received no Coconut Éclair.
He tweeted: ‘Hey @QualityStreetUK @NestleUKI, I think your Quality Street quality control needs some recalibration. 3 purple ones, 7 fudges, ZERO coconut eclairs? Explain yourselves.’
And now Nestlé has admitted that there was indeed a shortage of one of the beloved blue one.
A representative for Nestlé responded gave an explanation. They wrote: ‘Aw sorry to hear that your mix didn’t contain the Coconut Éclair! Don’t worry though, you didn’t get any less! Sometimes, due to circumstances beyond our control, we replace one sweet with equally delicious sweets!’
But the customer wasn’t totally satisfied with the answer and quizzed the confectionary brand further: ‘So what you’re saying is that you have a shortage of coconut eclairs, so you have topped up with the other varieties?’
To which Nestlé admitted: ‘There was a shortage a little while ago which has now been rectified! We’re very sorry about that.’
Every tin of Quality Street should have an equitable mix of four flavours: fruit crème, chocolate, toffee and fudge.
There are more chocolate and toffee selections, which means less of each, but just two fruit cremes. As a result, Strawberry Delights and Orange Cremes (let’s face it, nobody truly loves those?) are very prevalent.