With 11 days to go until Christmas, now seems as good of a time as any to FINALLY open up those Christmas chocolate tins and scoff all the best ones. We do usually wait until after my birthday on December 22 to open them - but I took one for the team in the name of research, this year.
Whether you’re a Quality Street house or a Roses home, we’ve all got a favourite inside each of the festive treat boxes. For me, Heroes Fudge are always the first to go, and I’m partial to a Quality Street toffee penny, but you can keep your Celebrations Bounties and Roses Hazel Whirls.
Over the past few years, shoppers have noticed a marked difference in the quantity of each of the chocolates, with their being fewer of some and more of others. Of course, it would be a huge shame to be a fan of the Green Triangle only to find just four of them in a tub.
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So, I bought a tub of each of the popular family chocolates to count how many of each there were in every box, and there were a few surprises along the way.
Over the past few months, I’ve been keeping a close eye on the price of these Christmas chocolate boxes. Most recently, Aldi was the cheapest place to buy Quality Street and Celebrations - though they don’t seem to stock Heroes and Roses. I did, however, manage to track them down at another supermarket, completing my confectionary collection.
Here’s what I found when I cracked the seal on each of the popular festive chocolates.
Quality Street
There’s something about peeling back the purple lid of a box of Quality Street and revealing the gem-like wrapped chocolates in a variety of vibrant colours. This year, there was something a little different though.
Some of the chocolates are no longer being wrapped in shiny packaging, as Nestle moves to a more sustainable wrapper.
After 86 years, the shiny plastic and foil wrappers are being removed from Quality Street chocolates to reduce waste going to landfill. The new wrappings are made from a vegetable-based wax, and have already made an appearance in some boxes as the change is rolled out.
The new design keeps that Quality Street feel, and I’m pleased to see that they’re taking a more eco-friendly approach - particularly when the festive season produces so much waste annually. There were only a handful of the new wrappers in this box, but hopefully next year will see a more cohesive and consistent look.
Onto the number crunching. Nestle appears to have been most generous with the fudge, found in the pink wrappers, with eight of those found in the tub, closely followed by seven toffee fingers, strawberry dreams and caramel swirls.
Toffee pennies were next with just six of those, matching the number of orange creme, while there were five Purple Ones, coconut eclairs and orange chocolate crunches.
Fans of the Milk Choc Block and Green Triangle might be disappointed, though, with just four of each inside.
Total number of chocolates: 64
Least of: Green Triangle and Milk Choc Block - 4
Most of: Fudge - 8
Celebrations
It’s a long-running joke that Bounty is the nation's least favourite chocolate in a tin of Celebrations. And as such, Mars Wrigley’s revealed that the coconut-flavoured chocolate would be left out of some of the Celebrations boxes in the run up to Christmas.
The move came after a survey conducted by the chocolate factory found 39 per cent of Brits supported ditching the Bounty bar. The Bounty-less boxes were only available at select locations, according to the Mirror , so sadly, mine still featured them.
Inside the box, it was immediately clear that there were a LOT of Milky Ways, but as I unpacked, Snickers and Mars gave the nougat filled treat a run for its money. However, it was Milky Way which had the most chocolates at 13, with the latter two both offering 12.
Bounty fans would enjoy no less than eight coconut chocolates, matching the nation’s favourite Malteasers, which is said to be the most searched for, according to Britsuperstore.
Finally, there were just six Twix bars, Galaxy and Galaxy caramels - half the amount of Mars and Snickers.
Recent research from Britsuperstore has suggested that the Bounty bar is not actually the nation’s least favourite Celebration chocolate, with their study finding that instead, the Milky Way is the least loved, receiving fewer than 8,000 searches over the past five Christmases.
Total number of chocolates: 71
Least of: Twix, Galaxy and Galaxy caramel - 6
Most of: Milky Way - 13
Heroes
Heroes are by far the most popular in our house but there’s been one major change to the tubs this year. Due to a shortage, theTwirl mini bites have been replaced, and instead, Cadbury is putting two standard-size single bars in the tub.
Mondelez, who owns Cadbury, explained: “To ensure we can continue to bring our loyal consumers the products they know and love, we have temporarily substituted bitesize Cadbury Twirl in Heroes tubs, to the slightly larger Cadbury Twirl 21g across a small percentage of tubs produced. Rest assured consumers can enjoy the same amount of chocolate as before with the overall weight of the product remaining the same.”
So, two Twirl bars dug out, I’d approximate them to be a similar size as four or five mini bites. All of the other chocolates were unaffected by the shortage, though, with five Wispas, six Fudges, seven Crunchies and Dairy Milks, as well as eight Cream Egg and Dinky Deckers.
In this particular tub, I found nine eclairs and Dairy Milk caramels, taking the total number of chocolates to 59 minis and two large - or around 64 minis, which matches the number of Quality Streets.
Total number of chocolates: Approx 64
Least of: Twirl - two large (four/five small)
Most of: Eclairs and Dairy Milk Caramel - 9
Roses
Last but not least I unboxed the tub of Roses, which I have to admit is the box I’m least familiar with. They do very handily have each of the names of the chocolates written on the wrappers, though.
Also made by Cadbury, this box contained seven Dairy Milk bites, but it was the Golden Barrel they had most of, featuring eight in the tub.
Roses also feature six each of the hazel in caramel, hazel whirl, tangy orange creme, country fudge and caramel, with seven strawberry creams and only four signature truffles.
This tin did seem to have the most even split, though, with none of the chocolates reaching double figures like in the Celebrations. And I was very pleased with the significant number of Golden Barrels, as they’re my favourite.
Total number of chocolates: 56
Least of: Signature truffle - 4
Most of: Golden Barrel - 8
Question is, have you bought yours and which is your favourite chocolate inside? Let us know in the comments.
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