"Halloween" fever is taking over British stores
When you visit any supermarket in your area, you will find everything that comes to mind, from a chocolate cake inspired by the story of Count Dracula to an evil garlic-flavored bread. How did the UK become a hub for everyday products bearing the imprint of this ?frightening occasion
Marks and Spencers' Colin Silkworm Cake wrapped in mummy ties for Halloween (Marks and Spencers)
Somewhere between the bakery section and the cheese section of your local supermarket, there's a section that appears in September and gets bigger every year. You might call it a shelf pickpocket invasion. Adorned with black cats and pumpkins, charming perhaps, and filled with everyday products in a frightening combination, from the terrifying eyes and mouth garlic bread on display at Marks and Spencer's to the poisonous chocolate frog at Morrisons. I was assured it was edible. This year, Aldi's sells not one, but two, scary cakes, while Azda (pardon me, it's scary cakes! Sainsbury's has gone further, selling "Count Dracula's Wild Chocolate Cake".
As someone who had his childhood in the '90s, I will admit that this shocked me. Thirty years ago, the most you could expect for Halloween in Britain was a holiday special from the sitcom Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and a timid suggestion to parents to let you out knock on neighbors' doors and demand candy. And when your mom gets tired of ordering, your only reward is a small bag of colorful sweets that you eat while you watch TV. Meanwhile, Halloween meant old bags of plain gelatin, not Aldi's hot cheese witch soup. ?What happened
“Halloween today is probably second only to Christmas in importance to retailers ...in the 15 years or so, it has gone from being a small event that really matters to families who With young children, to a celebration that includes all ages and demographics." She believes the internet is partly to blame, explaining, "YouTube has made American culture a big part of everyday life here. When I was a kid, Halloween was a very secondary thing and celebrating it only took so much importance in America. But that has changed drastically."
The speed of this change was extreme. Just five years ago, the Guardian reported that Halloween hadn't really "taken root in Britain," a claim that sounds almost bizarre in 2022. According to market data firm Statista, Halloween merchandise sales have reached more than 600 million pounds. £695 million in 2021. To put this figure right, in 2001 Halloween-related sales were just £12 million ($14 million). Huge research into grocery sales also looks at the amounts of food made for Halloween, which means the season doesn't cause as much food waste as one might imagine.
Now that it's fall, almost every supermarket starts experimenting with their own Halloween products, but Marks and Spencer seems to be the queen of the market - the department store's famous "Cullen silkworm" cake wrapped in mummy ties really is a thing of the quality to be To worship him as if he were a holy god.
Katie Patino is Director of Product Development in the Long Life Food Division at Marks & Spencer, and thus the de facto supervising and promoter of the terrifying staples. While I've imagined the process behind making our purchases Halloween-themed include all the crafts we know about in horror literature, it's actually remarkably simple. Product developers take top-selling merchandise that buyers love, and give them a Halloween feel.
Trying to stifle her laughter, she says, "This year we launched a large pizza made up of small, round, eyeball-shaped pizzas. We called it 'Eye Want Pizza' [a play on where the eye is pronounced like me]... We have fingers." Zombie is, you know, beef kebabs, and we have Hell-oumi fingers [the first four letters of halloumi make for hell] that taste great. We also have some delicious white chocolate shapes that are decorated by hand and look like eyeballs. It looks very realistic, as there is a blackberry compote in it. When you bite down on it, a sticky red blackberry liquid comes out. We called them 'oozing eyeballs'."
eyond the bloody matters, we find that there is a delicate balance to be struck. “It's about enjoying a lot of the product without it being too ugly or unpleasant...I think the hardest part is making it family friendly,” says Patino. She says seasonal plans are in place more than a year in advance, which means she and her team have already devised the horrific dishes we'll be swallowing up around this time next year.
Ellerton points out that we are only aware of a fraction of the extent of Halloween in British retailers. "Supermarkets were among the first to realize its importance... They made Halloween an accessible and mass market in a way that it wasn't really when the celebration was limited to fashion stores or "The specialty retailers. The more things like Halloween-themed food are served, the more the occasion becomes part of the patriotic spirit."
Anyway, think for a moment about poor, forgotten Guy Fawkes [a 16th century British character who rebelled against the king and failed and the British celebrate by burning an effigy like him on November 5th at a fireworks display]. Thanks to Halloween occupying every inch of the store shelves, the number of fireworks nights on November 5th seems to be shrinking more than ever. But Ellerton offers an explanation: "I think it's very difficult to memorialize someone who has been hanged, drowned, and chopped up by decorating foods for that."
However, I think there is something wrong with some part of the mindset of product developers.
Source: websites