Dear Streets Ice-cream C/o Unliver

I write to express some concerns over the packaging of your new Magnum Ice cream – Magnum Temptation Chocolate. I recently purchased this for my husband, as he is a fan of brownies in ice cream. Let’s start with a positive. I would like to report that on the taste test, it passed with flying colours. There was some initial trepidation about the reduction in size – being approximately half way between a normal magnum and a mini – however Steve reported it was just right, as it was already very rich and the normal size magnum would have been “too much” – although I’m sure he’d have managed.

When presenting my husband with said ice cream, we both thought that the design of the packaging was quite beautiful – along the lines of a nice box of Swiss chocolates – and we were impressed with the design effort that must have gone into it. We also appreciated that differentiating oneself in the ice-cream market must be quite challenging, so were in total agreement that you have certainly “outdone” yourselves this time round.

However, we bring you back to your corporate responsibility and ask you to reconsider using such excessive packaging for your ice-creams. While beautiful, I cannot imagine how long it would take to break down with all that foil and shiny coating on its surface. How many oxygen providing trees will be shredded to meet your box demands and how much land will be ripped apart to extract aluminium to make it all so shiny?

Come on, it’s time to save the planet, not do more damage and it starts with you Unilever, the giants in the business. You people have children and grand children don’t you? Wouldn’t you like them to be able to breathe fresh air and go outside to get some Vitamin D without getting 3rd degree burns?

On another point, as Magnum Temptation Chocolate clearly states in the “healthy” section on the front of its packaging, a single ice-cream provides 11% of one’s daily energy needs. This means that if you had 10 Magnum Temptation Chocolate ice-creams in one day you should have excessive energy to get through the day. However, please turn the box over, because:

•  One ice-cream provides 19% of your daily total fat needs – so 10 would mean 200%
• One ice-cream provides 43% of your daily saturated fat needs – which means in excess of 400% of your daily needs
• Carbohydrates – specifically sugars – account for 25% – so that’s 300% of your daily needs
• All in all an extra 2 kilos would be consumed if you ate 10 magnums a day, 14 KGs a week….

 Not that anyone would – would they?

Yours, without the bollocks
Andrea