Vault
Safeway supermarkets (aka Woolworths in Australian states other than Victoria) have introduced a brand of ‘fun sized’ chocolates in several varieties that are shameless copies of big sellers and are considerably cheaper than the similar-sized bags produced by Cadbury and Nestlé. At first glance, none of the names are appealing, but the one being scrutinised today is ‘Vault’.
At first I assumed that because they were fun-sized bars, ‘Vault’ meant that it would give you the energy to leap up high in the air and vault over your obstacles and so forth but it seems as though it is instead meant to be a treasure unleashed from a safe. Whatever.
As with most supermarket in-house brands, the real manufacturer is not revealed on the packaging except to say that Vault was made in Germany and packed for Woolworths Australia and Progressive Co New Zealand.
I’m sure the makers of Snickers won’t be pleased because they look and sound like an exact replica to me: ‘milk chocolate coated mini bar with a soft fluffy centre filled with caramel and roasted peanuts.’ And, when eaten they taste exactly the same as well. A generous covering of sweet, milk chocolate over the fluffy nougaty stuff, lots of crunchy peanut bits and gooey stretchy caramel. To be fair, I should have had a couple of fun-sized Snickers alongside for comparison but there was nothing jarringly different or inferior about these Vaults. On the plus side, they’re a lot cheaper than Snickers.
Ingredients panels can often leave a bad taste in my mouth and today’s was a tad depressing. Whilst it was good to see that nearly a quarter of the bar consisted of peanuts, it was bad to see cocoa butter languishing distantly behind the usual villains of sugar and glucose syrup (ie double sugar), condensed milk and vegetable oil. The chocolate itself is said to contain at least 27% cocoa solids and was quite acceptable in this; whether it’s edible on its own remains to be seen.
Fat wise, these little fun sized fellas still pack a punch – six grams in each, with 2.5 grams of those being saturated fat. That means if they ever put out a full sized bar at say, 60 grams, it would be packing roughly half your daily fat allowance of 18 grams and half your saturated fat content if cholesterol is a problem. Best stick with a mere single fun sized one then.
Information
- Contains milk chocolate (27% cocoa solids).
- Filed under australia, milk chocolate, safeway, vault.
Woolworth’s=Safeway? Go figure… I walk down the block to buy my food at Safeway, here in Virginia. Holy multi-nationals, Batman!
Perry: I think Woolworths, Safeway, etc. are really just brands that get sold/licensed to different companies around the world. Here in the UK, we used to have both, but no longer have either of them.
What did it taste like lol?
Perry, Woolworths and Safeway are the exact same company here in Australia. In fact it’s only here in Victoria that they’re known as Safeway but they’re starting to brand themselves as Woolworths to catch up with the rest of the country.
James, it tasted exactly like a Snickers, which is a bar I happen to like very much indeed :). I just think a direct copy is a little bit ‘cheeky’ of them – surely there are other combinations to try under your own brand name?