A ‘hideous’ Mars bar sparked alarm among chocolate fans worried the iconic treat had fallen victim to a new design.
Harry Seager’s photographic evidence of a ripple-less Mars bar garnered thousands of likes, comments and shares when he posted it in the Dull Men’s Club Facebook page.
But fret not for your beloved bar, because Mars Wrigley UK has confirmed the telltale swirl is going nowhere.
And they’ve given Mr Seager £2 in compensation for the trauma caused by the bar he bought in Birmingham while travelling to a classic car show.
‘I think £2 is great, it will be two free Mars bars’, Mr Seager, from Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, said.
‘Maybe they could have sent me more but I’m not being ungrateful. I think it’s amazing after everything that’s happened that I got the £2 voucher.’
He added: ‘The only reason I emailed [Mars] was because I was interested in what might have caused it to happen. That is all I wanted to know and they kept side-lining that question.’
Explaining the error, a Mars Wrigley UK spokesperson said: ‘With over 2.5 million Mars Bars produced daily at our Slough factory it seems this has slipped through without its signature flourish.
‘While we can’t reveal all the secrets behind our product line, we can promise fans that these smooth Mars Bars are a rare find and the classic swirl isn’t going away.’
Mars might be tight-lipped about it, but some insider seem to have let loose the secrets of a bar still made in the Berkshire town as the very first in 1932.
Mr Seager previously told Metro: ‘A lot of people in the know have said that the Mars bars are blown with air after being enrobed which creates the ripple on top.
‘There’s a possibility this one wasn’t blasted with that jet of air.’
His sources suggest there’s supposed to be same stood at the end, removing any that haven’t been hit by air.
It seems this one did indeed slip through.
Mr Seager told the BBC: ‘I don’t know what happens to them then. I suppose they got put into products that have Mars bars in, like cakes and things.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
