Yesterday I went to the new M&M;’s World store on Leicester Square in central London. At 35,000 square feet this is the world’s largest sweet shop, and the place is ‘choc-full’ of M&Ms-branded; items. There are also M&M-themed; tableaus – an M&M; dressed as a Grenadier Guard, an M&M; in a knight’s costume, a group of M&Ms; recreating the Beatle’s ’Abbey Road’ cover – you get the idea.
What I don’t understand is why the range of edible products that you can buy is so limited – there are acres and acres of plastic holders, t-shirts, bibs, hats and the like but M&Ms; in the store only come in the ‘chocolate’ and ‘peanut’ varieties – OK you can get them in a literal rainbow of different colours from tubes in an area at the back of one floor, but there’s no sign of ‘peanut butter’, ‘dark chocolate’ or, my favourite, ‘whole almond’ anywhere. It’s probably the most colourful (and tacky) store in the whole of the West End but why dedicate this much space to two flavours of a particular brand of crispy-coated chocolate? I’m clearly missing something. Most of the prices are outrageous too…
December 2, 2011
London Sights