Munchies made to make your mouth indifferent

Munchies

The chocolate isn’t particularly spectacular, a standard milk chocolate that doesn’t have the taste and texture of that used in Cadbury’s Wispa, said to be made in Ireland from a different recipe from that produced in the UK. The caramel inside again offers little to stand out from other fillings found in Cadbury’s Caramel, for example, or those found in Quality Street. The biscuit ball centre is an insufficient size to have a significant impact on the overall experience, unlike the serious biscuit-based chocolates such as Twix or Penguin.
The individual topless pyramids do have an aesthetically pleasing aspect, but there isn’t enough of a difference here from, say Rolos.

So why are Munchies consistently one of the most expensive mainstream chocolate confections? With no luxury element, no special ingredients or packaging (just the paper sleeve and inner metallic paper lining) and no excuse of using Fairtrade ingredients (as the Cadbury’s Dairy Milk bar now does), it seems a mystery why Nestle seem to seek to position this product ahead of the pack.



Munchies were originally made in 1957 by the Rowntree Mackintosh company, who were then taken over by Nestle in 1988.

There is a facebook page dealing with this very topic. I am not one of the 21 (as of 22.05.2011) members.

I emailed Nestle customer services about the pricing policy, here’s what they said:




                                002893671A                  23 May 2011


Dear Mr Taylor

Thank you very much for your email.

In answer to your enquiry, our recommended resale price for Munchies is generally around 67p. We can only recommend a resale price as the retailers are free to charge whatever they think is appropriate for the product.

Thank you once again for taking the time and trouble to contact us. Your comments have been carefully noted.

We hope this information will be helpful and thank you for your interest and loyalty to our products.

Yours sincerely





**** *******
Contact Centre Executive
Consumer Services

Not really a help.
Any key in the ingredients to explain the expense?
Milk chocolate is made from: Sugar, cocoa butter, skimmed milk powder, cocoa mass, lactose and proteins from whey, whey powder, butterfat, emulsifier (soya lecithin), natural vanilla flavouring), Caramel from: Glucose-fructose syrup, sweetened condensed skimmed milk, vegetable fat, sugar, salt, Biscuit from: Wheat flour, sugar, vegetable fat, cocoa butter, dried whole milk, cocoa mass, whey powder, barley malt extract, lactose, raising agents (sodium bicarbonate, ammonium bicarbonate), salt, emulsifier (soya lecithin).

So no, then. Pretty standard stuff, no gold leaf, no ground blood diamonds.

I love the nutrition information though, "Per 1/2 tube 133 calories" because you would just eat half the tube and then carefully wrap the rest up for another day. No.

Oh well, it'll always be a mystery but that last sampling hasn't persuaded me to make the small economic leap for potential confection satisfaction.