Heads will roll: Hema ditches ‘moorkop’ for ‘chocoladebol’

Photo: Teunie at Dutch Wikipedia
Photo: Teunie at Dutch Wikipedia

High street retail giant Hema is to stop calling its popular cream puff pastries moorkoppen (moors’ heads) from March 30, the company said on Thursday.

The product, to be renamed chocoladebol – chocolate ball – will be exactly the same, but the name will be more in keeping with the times, Hema is quoted as saying by the AD.

The moorkop is not the first Dutch pastry to get a new name because of changing sensitivities. Marshmallows covered in chocolate were previously known as negerzoenen (negro kisses) – a name that was phased out over several years.

A spokesman for the Dutch bakers association NBOV said the discussion about whether or not to use moorkop is new. ‘It is up to individual bakers themselves to decide whether or not to make the change,’ the spokesman said.

Hema told the AD it had not yet received any complaints and would not be making any further comments about the name change.

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