There Are Counterfeit Wonka Bars Everywhere

There were enough things to worry about during this hectic holiday season, but now, apparently, we need to be concerned that we’re buying counterfeit candy bars too. That’s the word from the United Kingdom’s Food Standards Agency (FSA), which has warned shoppers against buying chocolate bars labeled as either Wonka Bars or Prime bars, the latter using the name of the brand co-founded by YouTube superstars Logan Paul and KSI. 

The FSA warns that these counterfeit chocolates could be unsafe to eat because they could include ingredients or allergens that aren’t listed on the labels or have been produced under unhygienic conditions. And how does it know that the Wonka- and Prime-labeled candy bars aren’t legit? It’s pretty simple: Prime told the agency that it only makes beverages, and the company has not made any Prime foods.

In the case of the Wonka bars, Nestle stopped producing them in 2014. A Nestle spokesperson said that the Wonka-named candy is “a brand that comes and goes” before adding that “novelty is, by its nature, often short-term.” (Nestle sold the Wonka brand to the Ferrero Group in 2018.) 

“With Christmas coming up, don’t waste your money on fake branded chocolate for your children, friends or family — you won’t be getting what you think you are paying for, and you don’t know what is in them,” Tina Potter, the Food Standards Agency’s Head of Incidents said in a statement. “There could be a food safety risk, especially for those with food intolerances or allergies [...] Please do not buy or eat these bars, and if you think you’ve bought a fake chocolate bar, or if you see something that does not seem right when you are shopping, report it to your Local Authority.” 

This isn’t the first time fake Wonka Bars have found their way onto shelves in the United Kingdom. In March 2022, the FSA warned about the same situation, that “unregistered businesses” were making counterfeit chocolates and selling them as Wonka Bars. Some of the shady candies were “made” by using existing chocolate bars and simply slipping them into Wonka wrappers. (And that’s one of the problems: there’s no way of knowing what ingredients are in the chocolate wearing its new Wonka costume.) 

In 2013, a woman in Manchester, England, bought a Wonka bar in a candy shop in the city center and was over the moon when her bar contained a Golden Ticket — yes, just like the one in Roald Dahl’s book and in the subsequent films — that guaranteed that she’d get a tour of the candy factory. When she couldn’t determine what she needed to do to claim her prize, she called Nestle, who told her that they weren’t manufacturing Wonka bars at that time, so there was no prize to collect. 

Next thing you know, somebody’s gonna tell me that this Oompa Loompa milk isn’t real either.