# Sweet mix ups and packaging blunders

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## Summary

Missing nut warnings, plastic in a Snickers, a mouse in a Topic and toffees stuck to their wrappers: sweet mix ups and packaging blunders that made news.

## Description

Making sweets is a precise business, and the label matters as much as the recipe. When things go wrong, the result can be a recall, a court case or a lot of sticky wrappers.
Missing nut warnings
Cadbury had two labelling problems in 2007. On 10 February 2007, it recalled some of its Easter eggs, because they had been made in a factory that handled nuts and the packaging did not make that clear. Cadbury said the products were perfectly safe for people without nut allergies.
That September came a second recall. A printing mistake at the Somerdale factory left tree nut allergy warnings off 250 g Dairy Milk Double Chocolate bars, and thousands of bars were recalled, Cadbury's second recall of chocolate bars in two years. For how to read the allergy information on a sweet, see how to read a sweet label
Plastic in a Snickers
In February 2016, Mars recalled chocolate bars in 55 countries after a piece of plastic was found in one bar. The recalled products, Mars bars, Snickers, Milky Way Minis, Miniatures and some Celebrations boxes, had all been made at Mars's factory in Veghel, in the southern Netherlands, with best before dates from 19 June 2016 to 8 January 2017.
A mouse in a Topic
In 1997, a Topic bar was found to contain the remains of a mouse. An investigation traced the contamination to a supplier in Turkey, and the UK courts ruled that Mars could not be held negligent under the Food Safety Act, because it had exercised due diligence in inspecting the supplier's operations: see sweets from the 1960s
Lead in a sour chew
In January 2011, the US distributor of the Toxic Waste Nuclear Sludge chew bar, made in Pakistan, recalled it because of lead contamination, first detected by the California Department of Public Health: see the history of sour sweets
The toffee that stuck
Not every blunder is dangerous. Quality Street's Toffee Penny stuck to its cellophane wrapper for years, because toffee draws in moisture, until in 1967 a foil backed paper wrapper solved the problem: see why are sweets wrapped?
Bigger scares and changes
Some problems were far more serious, such as the Cadbury salmonella scare of 2006 and the Kinder salmonella recall of 2022: see the Cadbury salmonella scare of 2006 and the Kinder salmonella recall. Others were deliberate changes that customers noticed straight away: see the Toblerone gaps

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