| Terry's Chocolate Orange | |
| Image Upright: | 1.35 |
| Type: | Confection |
| Currentowner: | Carambar & Co |
| Origin: | United Kingdom |
| Markets: | Worldwide |
| Previousowners: |
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Terry's Chocolate Orange is a chocolate product created by Terry's in 1932 at Terry's Chocolate Works in York, England. The brand has changed ownership several times, and production was moved to Poland in 2005. Since 2018, the Terry's Chocolate Orange has been produced in Strasbourg, France, by Carambar.
See main article: article and Terry's. Chemist Joseph Terry joined a York sweets company in 1823, where he developed new lines of chocolate, candied peel, and marmalade.[1] In 1830 he became sole owner of the business and following his death it was eventually passed to his sons, including Joseph Jr. who managed the company.[2] In 1895 it became Joseph Terry and Sons Ltd., with directors including Joseph Jr. and his own son Thomas.[3] The company opened the Art Deco-style factory known as Terry's Chocolate Works[4] [5] in 1926, and began launching new products.[6] These included the Dessert Chocolate Apple (1926), Terry's All Gold (1931) and the Chocolate Orange (1932).[7]
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. In 1954, production of the chocolate apple was phased out in favour of increased production of the chocolate orange.[6] In 1979, Terry's launched the Chocolate Lemon, but it was withdrawn three years later.[7]
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.
Chocolate oranges appeared on the South Korean market in the GS25 chain of convenience stores in 2017.
2005 saw the closure of the Terry's factory in York, and Chocolate Orange manufacturing was moved to continental Europe by then-owner Kraft Foods.[8] Following the 2016 sale of the brand by Mondelez (one of two successor companies to Kraft Foods Inc., the other being Kraft Foods Group Inc.) to investment company Eurazeo, manufacture was consolidated in 2018 in Strasbourg, France, as a product of Carambar & Co.[9] The company says that global sales of Terry's Chocolate Oranges doubled from 2019 to 2022, including a tripling of sales in the United States, for a total of 44 million Oranges annually, in countries including the UK, Ireland, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.[10]
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").
There have been a number of spin-off products, currently including:
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.[11] 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:
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 timer music). 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".
A new advert in 2020, featuring voiceover by Brian Blessed, explains how the Chocolate Orange is a catalyst for "British Unsquaredness", along with a new slogan, "Deliciously Unsquare".
More recently the new Terry's chocolate Mint and Orange are stop motion animation's and are Voiced by Terry Alderton.
On 29 May 2016, the UK product size was reduced from 175g to 157g (or 147g in Canada) by changing the moulded shape of each segment to leave an air gap between each piece. Despite this, the price doubled in some retail outlets.[12]