It has been a desperate few months for Britain’s biscuit eaters.

The floods that accompanied last December’s Storm Desmond to Cumbria caused the almost total shutdown of the McVitie’s biscuit factory in Carlisle. Long established favourites which have been in short supply since have included Ginger Nuts, Custard creams and, irony of ironies, Water Biscuits as well as Bourbons. Only now are the supermarket shelves beginning to be replenished with these goodies.

And now I have caught wind of another disaster. The manufacturers of Jammie (sic) Dodgers, those shortbread biscuits with a jammy centre, Burton Biscuits, have changed the well-tried and tested recipe. The new biscuits include milk protein and have 22% less sugar.

But customers are not happy. The presence of milk protein makes the biscuits unsuitable for vegans and people with dairy allergies. Rather than seeing this as another reason not to be a vegan, protesters have been active on-line and there is now a petition to force Burton Biscuits, rather like Patak with their Lime Pickle, to bring back the old recipe.

For me, Dodgers would join Bourbons on my list of least favourite biscuits but the moral of the story is that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Filed under: Humour, News Tagged: Burton Biscuits, Dogers changed recipe upsets vegans, ginger nut shortage, Jammie Dodgers, McVitie's biscuits, Patak's lime pickle, Storm Desmond