Pastel pink and as cute as a button, is there a more recognisable sweet than Percy Pig? Conceived in 1992 and sold by Marks & Spencer, the brand of gummy sweets has come to dominate the confectionery market; in 2018, it was estimated that 10 million bags were sold in the UK every year.
Hence the national schism caused by Henry Dimbleby, who has accused Percy Pig packaging of being “genuinely misleading”. The Leon co-founder, who has been tasked by the government to lead a review of the British food system, spoke of his “bugbear” about the sweet at the launch of his National Food Strategy, citing it as an example of products whose labels are “increasingly littered with boasts that, if not quite white lies, are at least wilfully misleading.”
In the case of Percy, those include claims