Terry's Chocolate Orange is a chocolate product created by

Terry's Terry's is a British chocolate and confectionery maker, formerly based in York, England, until 2005, and re-established in 2019 as Terry's Chocolate Co and based in London. The company was founded in 1767. The company's headquarters and fact ...

in 1932 at Terry's Chocolate Works in York, England. The brand has changed ownership several times, and production was moved to Eastern Europe in 2005. Since 2018, the Terry's Chocolate Orange has been produced in Strasbourg, France, by

Carambar Carambar is a brand of chewy caramel candy from France, owned by Eurazeo. History In 1954, Mr. Fauchille, director of the Delespaul-Hazard company, and Mr. Gallois, an employee, had a surplus of cocoa and decided to create a new, original recipe ...

Development

Chemist Joseph Terry joined a York sweets company in 1823, where he developed new lines of chocolate,

candied peel Candied fruit, also known as glacé fruit, is whole fruit, smaller pieces of fruit, or pieces of peel, placed in heated sugar syrup, which absorbs the moisture from within the fruit and eventually preserves it. Depending on the size and type of ...

, and marmalade. 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. In 1895 it became Joseph Terry and Sons Ltd., with directors including Joseph Jr. and his own son Thomas. The company opened the

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

-style factory known as Terry's Chocolate Works in 1926, and began launching new products. These included the Dessert Chocolate Apple (1926), Terry's All Gold (1931) and the Chocolate Orange (1932). At the onset of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, confectionery production was immediately halted. The factory was taken over by F. Hills and Sons of

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

as a

shadow factory A shadow is a dark area where light from a light source is blocked by an opaque object. It occupies all of the three-dimensional volume behind an object with light in front of it. The cross section of a shadow is a two- dimensional silhouette, ...

to manufacture and repair aircraft propeller blades. With the factory handed back to the company post-war, production was difficult due to continued

rationing Rationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, services, or an artificial restriction of demand. Rationing controls the size of the ration, which is one's allowed portion of the resources being distributed on a particular ...

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. In 1979, Terry's launched the Chocolate Lemon, but it was withdrawn three years later. Chocolate orange sculpture

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 Toblerone ( , ) is a Swiss chocolate brand produced in Bern. Toblerone is known for its distinctive shape, a series of joined triangular prisms and lettering engraved in the chocolate. Since 2012, the brand has been owned by US company Mondele ...

) product. Chocolate oranges appeared on the South Korean market in the

GS25 GS25 () is a South Korean chain of convenience stores operated and owned by GS Retail, a subsidiary company of the GS Group. The headquarters of the company are located at the GS Tower in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. As of June 9, 2020, GS25 operates 13,899 ...

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 The second incarnation of Kraft Foods is an American food manufacturing and processing conglomerate, split from Kraft Foods Inc. in 2012 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It became part of Kraft Heinz in 2015. A merger with Heinz, arran ...

. Following the 2016 sale of the brand by

Mondelez Mondelez International, Inc. ( ), often styled Mondelēz, is an American multinational confectionery, food, holding and beverage and snack food company based in Chicago. Mondelez has an annual revenue of about $26 billion and operates in ...

to investment company

Eurazeo Eurazeo is a French investment company formed by the merger of Azeo and Eurafrance in April 2001. The company is headquartered in Paris. Eurazeo is a leading global investment group, with a diversified portfolio of €25.6 billion in assets und ...

, manufacture was consolidated in 2018 in Strasbourg, France, as a product of Carambar & Co. 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.

Structure

The Terry's Chocolate Orange comprises an orange-shaped ball of chocolate mixed with

orange oil Orange oil is an essential oil produced by cells within the rind of an orange fruit (''Citrus sinensis'' fruit). In contrast to most essential oils, it is extracted as a by-product of orange juice production by centrifugation, producing a co ...

, 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").

Spin-offs

There have been a number of spin-off products, currently including: *Chocolate Orange bar: a bar of six segments, initially produced with smooth vertical segments (similar to a

bar), then, later, with textured segments that mimic those of the traditional orange shape. *Chocolate Orange minis: a bag of small segments *Chocolate Orange White Eggs: egg-shaped

white chocolate White chocolate is a confectionery typically made of sugar, milk, and cocoa butter. It is pale ivory colored, and lacks many of the compounds found in milk and dark chocolates. It is solid at room temperature because the melting point of cocoa ...

versions of Chocolate Orange that were available for one Easter *Segsations: individual segments of chocolate in different flavours, including: milk chocolate, puffed rice,

honeycomb A honeycomb is a mass of hexagonal prismatic wax cells built by honey bees in their nests to contain their larvae and stores of honey and pollen. Beekeepers may remove the entire honeycomb to harvest honey. Honey bees consume about of honey ...

, cornflake 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 Creme 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. 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 A countdown is a sequence of backward counting to indicate the time remaining before an event is scheduled to occur. NASA commonly employs the terms "L-minus" and "T-minus" during the preparation for and anticipation of a rocket launch, and eve ...

'' 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".

Product range

* Terry's Dessert Chocolate Apple (1926–1954; precursor to the Orange) * Terry's Chocolate Lemon (short-lived 1979-1980s variant) * Terry's Chocolate Orange Dark (formerly 'Plain') * Terry's Chocolate Orange Milk * 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, either individual or sharing bar) * 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

On 29 May 2016, the UK product size was reduced from 175g to 157g 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.

References

External links

* {{Terry's Brand name chocolate British confectionery British brands Yorkshire cuisine Mondelez International brands Products introduced in 1932 Candy Citrus dishes