The results are in: Which Caterpillar cake do Cambridge students prefer?

As you will have seen all over Twitter, Marks & Spencer have filed a lawsuit against Aldi. They are claiming that Aldi’s Cuthbert looks far too similar to the OG Colin from M&S.

If I’m being honest, I’m unsure of why M&S chose to target Aldi when every other British supermarket has attempted to recreate this birthday party classic – there’s Wiggles from Sainsbury’s, Charlie from the Co-op and even Curly from Tesco.

Either way, Aldi have responded to this situation like any other honourable company would;  they took to Twitter and made memes.

But what caterpillar cake do Cambridge students prefer?

The result: #Freecuthbert is trending on twitter, my TikTok fyp is flooded with #colinvscuthbert and I’m pretty sure Aldi’s social media team are getting a fat raise.

The endless social media storm about this controversial and quintessentially British matter got me thinking: what caterpillar would Cambridge students buy for a friend’s birthday? Are we #teamcolin, #teamcuthbert or something entirely different?

So I sent out a survey to find out. Here are the results!

20% of Cambridge students have been swayed by the memes and are headed to Aldi to buy Cuthbert. I rate this decision highly. Cuthbert seems like the kinda guy to hold your hair back after a night out. He seems real, he seems genuine and he seems down to earth. However, this number could also just represent the number of Cambridge students living in the hill colleges. With no Mainsburys or M & S in sight, of course they would head to Aldi for the chocolate delight .

22% of us chose Wiggles from Sainsbury’s. I get it. It’s cheap, it’s tasty and it involves a trip to Mainsbury’s. Or maybe this is actually just the percentage of Cambridge students that would do anything for a Crushbridge?

5% of us would head to Waitrose. What?! I was surprised by this number for various reasons. Firstly, where is the Waitrose in Cambridge?? I had to do a cheeky Google Maps search to find out and, even then, it seems like a strange choice! The Waitrose in Cambridge is only a little one near the Grafton. I’m going to try to avoid Cambridge stereotypes here, and just suggest that maybe 5% of Cambridge students just want to make their birthday celebrations extra fancy?

Whatever the case, I’m disappointed that people wanted to buy a caterpillar cake called Cecil. I mean, CECIL! The fact that there’s no hard C in his name stresses me out – there’s just no ring to it. I’m sorry, but anyone who would buy Cecil is just wrong.

And finally, with a resounding 53%, Cambridge students would prefer to buy Colin from Marks & Spencers. Despite Aldi’s impeccable memes and effortless social media promotion, Colin has emerged victorious in our eyes. Maybe it’s just because I didn’t want Cecil to win, but I’m here for the result! Unsurprisingly, Cambridge M&S is conveniently located close to the market place and Pret queue. At the same time, Colin is the OG. He is a British staple of many children’s (and adult’s) birthday parties. Maybe it’s the nostalgia that we treasure most after all when shopping for our caterpillar cakes…

There you have it; Colin reigns supreme in M&S green. (Photo credits: Poppy Robinson)

Winners and losers aside, Aldi has suggested to M&S and other supermarkets that their caterpillar cake profits should go towards charity. Incredible plan. This means that we can eat our favourite caterpillar cakes guilt-free. So Cambridge, enjoy your Colin. 

Feature image credit: John Sutton via the Creative Commons License, PA/ALDI via the BBC, and Matilda Head

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