Woolworths Select Almond Chocolate

Posted by in Chocolate Reviews on March 12 2009 | Leave A Comment
Woolworths Select Almond Chocolate

One of the most disappointing reactions anyone can have after looking forward to their daily (for me) or weekly chocolate treat is to snap off a few squares, let it swirl around the mouth for a few moments before dismissively grunting, “Meh”.

Perhaps my hopes should have been much lower to start with. Firstly, it’s a supermarket ‘own brand’ of chocolate and secondly it’s in a wrapper makes the product look about as appealing as an ingrown toenail removal. This is not the kind of chocolate you can take to a friend’s house to share and hope to receive a warm welcome. Usually, such products are made by a more well-known commercial enterprise as a bit of an earner on the side, but when I contacted Woolworths, I was told that they weren’t allowed to tell me the manufacturing firm because it was “commercially sensitive.”

Woolworths Select Almond Chocolate

Okaaaaay, so “Commercially Sensitive” might be a more tactful code word for ‘Second Rate’ or ‘Company Rejects’ because this stuff is bland, bland bland. Despite having sugar as the number one ingredient, followed by the expected almonds, full cream milk powder and cocoa mass and consisting of 33% cocoa solids (which isn’t bad for milk chocolate), there was no impact on the taste buds when a square or four was sampled.

The almonds inside were nice and crunchy, but the chocolate covering them was impossible to taste. Frantic chewing, slow sucking, gentle melting, serving at room temperature, nothing helped to bring out any distinct flavour. It might as well have been sugarless carob for all of the impact and enjoyment it provided, and no, that’s NOT a compliment. AVOID.

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Comments On This Post

  1. Maggie

    Perhaps it’s not such a bad thing that Woolworths collapsed, then 🙂

  2. Christine

    Woolworths has collapsed???

  3. Dom (Chocablog Staff)

    Woolworths in Australia is not the same as Woolworths in the UK (RIP).

  4. Anna

    I quite like Woolworths’ own brand ripoff of Top Deck (can’t remember what they call it — Duo or something) but I haven’t tried the other types of chocolate, and now I definitely won’t try the almond! The plain wrapping is a bit puzzling, I thought Woolworths Select was the upmarket own brand for the richer and more discerning customers, so you’d expect them to put more effort in, hey?

  5. Maggie

    Oops, I forgot Chocablog is truly international – Woolworths Down Under is still strong, but the British one went into administration last year. Just a couple of days ago one of the shops reopened as Wellworths 🙂

  6. anabels

    They’ve jsut started bringing the Select range into NZ – I will ahve to remember to ignore it and stick with the Whittakers 🙂

  7. Yep, ignore it in NZ and stick to fabulous Whitakers.

    Woolies ‘select’ is a nice marketing idea, but home-branded luxury treats like chocolate just aren’t going to cut it in terms of sharing with others. My reaction would be, “Oh, so I’m worth the cheapest block at the supermarket, hmm?”

  8. Jimmy

    I agree that Woolworths Select chocolate is best avoided. It’s like eating compound chocolate.

    Have you tried the You’ll love Coles Belgian chocolate? It’s almost as good as Lindt – very smooth & creamy. I get the Milk Chocolate variety and no longer buy Cadbury Dairy Milk.

  9. Hi Jimmy
    I have tried the ‘You’ll love Coles’ stuff a year or two back and tracked it back to Italo-Suisse chocolate company which, despite the name, is in Belgium.

  10. Grace

    I have to disagree. Although other brands of chocolate are absolutely delicious, Woolworths Select Almond Chocolate doesn’t deserve all this bad publicity. Sure, the chocolate taste was no Whittakers but it’s certainly eatable. For $2.5 a block, it’s worth it (and cheap enough) to give it a go, what’s the worst that could happen (apart from nut allergies)??

    6/10

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