An Ever-Expanding Brand
Colin the Caterpillar is more than a cake. He is a brand platform. The original M&S chocolate roll cake is now the centre of a sprawling universe of spin-off products, most of them found in the confectionery aisle. The brand covers everything from M&S Colin the Caterpillar Softies to a whole suite of gummy sweets.
There are Colin the Caterpillar Cola Gums, Fruit Gums, Cherry Gums, Fruit Sours and even Sour Stomps. It is a huge range. Beyond sweets, the character is licensed for partyware, including official Party Cups and Paper Plates. This is a character that has successfully jumped from the cake tin into almost every other party food category. The original cake remains, but the name Colin now means sweets as much as it means sponge.
The Crossover Concept
This context makes brand crossovers feel like a logical next step. While M&S has kept the core cake flavour consistent for decades, the market for co-branded products is well-established. Combining two known identities is a familiar strategy in UK supermarkets. You take one beloved brand and merge it with another.
The logic is simple. It creates novelty while retaining the comfort of the familiar. This mockup proposes just that, pairing the UK’s most famous birthday cake with its most famous chocolate orange. The image, which ran with the caption “Chocolate Orange Colin the Caterpillar! Who else needs this in their life?”, taps directly into this format. It is a classic flavour combination applied to a classic cake. No part of the concept requires a great leap of imagination.
A Plausible Design
The pack design itself is a simple, effective fusion. It uses the standard Colin the Caterpillar box, with its familiar green background and branding. The caterpillar illustration, however, has been altered to reflect the new flavour. His trainers are now orange, and the sweets on his back have been replaced with pieces that mimic the segmented texture and colour of a Terry’s Chocolate Orange.
This is not a radical reinvention. It is a light-touch redesign that communicates the flavour partnership instantly. The product is still recognisably Colin, but with a clear twist. This is how these concepts gain traction online: they look plausible enough to be real, borrowing the design language of the products they imitate. They feel like something you could easily see on a supermarket shelf.
What the real range looks like
The official M&S Colin the Caterpillar range is extensive, but the core cake has never had a permanent flavour variant. The brand has instead expanded through confectionery like Colin the Caterpillar Softies, Cola Gums, Fruit Sours, and Speckles. A co-branded flavour like Chocolate Orange would be a departure, taking the central cake in a new direction rather than creating another spin-off.
- M S Colin the Caterpillar Cake
- M S Colin the Caterpillar Softies
- M S Colin the Caterpillar Speckles
- M S Colin the Caterpillar Cola Gums
- M S Mini Colin the Caterpillar Cakes
- M S Colin the Caterpillar Fruit Gums
- M S Colin the Caterpillar Party Cups
- M S Colin the Caterpillar Party Time
- M S Colin the Caterpillar Sour Stomps
- M S Colin the Caterpillar Cherry Gums
Frequently asked questions
- What is Colin the Caterpillar?
- Colin the Caterpillar is the signature birthday cake from UK retailer Marks & Spencer. It’s a chocolate sponge roll filled with buttercream, covered in a milk chocolate shell, and decorated with a white chocolate face and smartie-style sweets.
- Are there other official Colin the Caterpillar cake flavours?
- The main Colin the Caterpillar cake has a single, consistent chocolate flavour. The brand’s variety comes from its expansion into other formats, including Mini Colin the Caterpillar Cakes and a wide range of sweets like Fruit Gums and Sour Stomps.
- Is the Chocolate Orange Colin the Caterpillar cake real?
- No. This is a Snackfish, which is a mockup image created by the online creative page UK Snack Attack. The product is a concept and is not made by M&S or sold in any shops.
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You have been Snackfished!
Snackfish :
[sn-a-ck-fish] verb
A snack that lies about its legitimacy as an official product online for internet clout and attention. Most commonly fabricated in Adobe Photoshop or using the unofficial Snackfish AI