For the second time in 8 months, Cadbury is recalling products.
This time, there’s nothing wrong with the chocolate itself. The issue is with the labelling, which ommits a warning for nut allergy sufferers.
The affected products include:
A full list of all affected products is available on the Cadbury web site.
Here, clutched in my overworked hands is one finger of Twix. One individual chocolate covered caramel and biscuit finger. A single bar of pleasure… A solitary slab of delight. Restricted in its own individual wrapper it is separated from the rest of the chocaworld. It is secluded and lonely.
Good job I have 13 more individually wrapped fingers of Twix lined up beside me then!
No more lonesome nights for this bar; No longer left on the shelf. Go forth dear bachelor of the confectionary aisle and mingle with your kindred chocaspirits. Life is too short to be companionless….and life is too short for a chocolate bar within my reach. 
So why did I buy individual fingers of Twix instead of the usual twin bar? Because the packet said 10 chocolate biscuit bars plus 4 extra free! Free in the same sentence as chocolate! The sweetest words do delight.
I like Twix. You know where you are with Twix. If Twix were a man I’d probably settle down with him (unless the twin bar thing meant he had a split personality, then I’d have to dump him) (…but, if it meant he had a twin brother who I quite legitimately kept confusing him for then….) Where was I? Twix; nice chocolate, smooth caramel and just the right amount of biscuit, you can’t go wrong.
Now you have to bear in mind that I’m talking about the Twix in my life. Sure, there is now a dark chocolate version, but I shall remain faithful to my milk chocolate Twix thank you very much. No doubt there will be a peanut-butter version in the States and if any of our friends across the Pond would like to report on this I would be ever so grateful.
Twix hides quietly in the corner of the chocolate-display in the sweet shop. It doesn’t shout out at you like some of it’s sparkly foiled chocafriends. It waits until you remember it exists and then you wonder why you left it so long.
Twix is chocolatey, caramely, biscuity and it fills you up until your next bar of chocolate…erm I mean until your next substantial meal. Job done.
Never underestimate the power of Creme Egg:
O Smarties! Why have you forsaken me!
There was a time when a tube of Smarties was the best thing on earth. Notice I say ‘tube of Smarties’ – this is about more than the chocolates themselves. This is about the very essence of what makes Smarties Smarties.
But first, for those that don’t know, Smarties are another spheroid chocoalate drop covered in a brightly coloured crispy sugar shell. They’re smaller than Galaxy Minstrels and tastier than M&Ms. They’re kids’ chocolate – and if you live in the UK, you will almost certainly have eaten at least 3 tons of them before you turned 18.
So what made Smarties special? Strangely, not the chocolate. Although it’s nice enough and very brightly coloured, it’s nothing special. But I’m not going to talk about the chocolate today. This is about packaging.
Yes, packaging.
Until recently, Smarties came in a thick, cylindrical cardboard tube with a ‘pop-off’ plastic lid. The lids came in different colours, and each had a letter of the alphabet embossed on it. Collect the lids and make rude words – what more could a kid ask for!
Then, in 2005, everything changed. Nestlé announced they were replacing the packaging with thin, hexagonal tubes… and no plastic lid. We were told this was to keep the brand ‘fresh’, but the real reason was cost. These lighter, plastic-free packages are cheaper to produce and can be stacked more efficiently in boxes saving space and transportation costs. Pah!
You may think I’m mad going on about a cardboard tube with a plastic lid, but this is important! There are even museums and swapping sites dedicated to it. The new hexagonal tubes just aren’t as cool. They’re flimsy, and I can no longer spell out ‘nestle sucks’ with the lids.
So is the new packaging really that bad? Well, no.. but they’re just not Smarties any more. Nestlé messed with a British institution and completely destroyed it. Will they ever return to the cylindrical tubes? Frankly, I doubt it… but only Smarties have the answer.
<end of rant>