Cadbury Faces Chocolate Coin Twitter Storm

Cadbury has faced a storm of protest since confirming it had stopped producing chocolate coins - a traditional Christmas stocking filler.

The company blamed shoppers switching to cheaper "own label" alternatives for pushing down its sales.

Cadbury, which is the biggest chocolate maker in the UK for Christmas sales, said the coins were worth less than £1m to the business so it needed to concentrate on more successful items.

The news was broken on Monday night when Cadbury answered a Daily Telegraph journalist's question about the treats, which were wrapped in metal foil and packaged in netting.

It replied on Twitter: "@hwallop Chocolate coins have been discontinued however we have lots of other chocolatey treats to try."

A backlash followed with the majority of respondents calling for a re-think, some describing the decision as "madness" while others even suggested the company had cancelled Christmas.

One user, Mark Cobley, posted: "NOOOOOOOOOOOO This is a horrendous decision and @CadburyUK must reconsider."

Cadbury, which was bought by Kraft in 2010, said the foil aspect of the product was "fiddly" and, because they have to appear like real coins, it was unable to give them the Cadbury 'purple' branding.