Since the 60s, Animal Bars have been a children’s lunchbox staple - and they’re one of my fondest primary school dinner time memories.
While I was in first school in the early noughties, even my parents enjoyed an Animal Bar or two in their time, after the chocolate bar was launched by Nestle in 1963.
The distinct jungle packaging was a joy to see when you lifted the lid on your lunchbox, followed by the silver foil you could rub back and forth to make an impression of the chocolate mold beneath, trying to guess the animal on your bar.
On the inside of the paper wrapper was - and still is - a game such as ‘which leopard has the most spots’, offering an extra math lesson on your break time.
The original bars had multiple animal heads molded onto them, but when I was younger, it became two - like a domino.
Now, there are a handful of potential animals that will feature on an animal bar, including antelope, monkey, parrot, iguana, lion, bear, leopard, zebra, rhino and dog - with some people lucky enough to unwrap an elusive deer.
I’d not seen Animal Bars in supermarkets since I left primary school - and honestly, I never much gave them a second thought. Frankly, I thought they'd been discontinued.
But when I saw a box of them sitting on the shelf in Home Bargains, I was overcome with nostalgia. I felt like I’d been transported to 2004.
The 19g milk chocolate bars were priced up at 29p each - a bit of a price hike from 12p like they were nearly 20 years ago. It appears that the Freddo isn’t the only novelty cocoa snack to suffer the effects of inflation.
That said, I snapped up two in the name of reminiscing about my childhood and rushed home to show my parents, who too remembered them fondly.
Much like I had done as a seven-year-old, I carefully peeled back the paper wrapper to reveal my game, indented my foil, and discovered my domino-style bar displaying a rhino and a bear.
The taste is that of classic Nestle chocolate, with no artificial colours, flavours or preservative, and honestly - eating it made my day I don’t think anything - not even a Tamogotchi - could make me feel quite so young at heart quite like an Animal Bar.
If you're desperate to rediscover the milk chocolate childhood snack, you can get a huge box of 44 bars delivered straight to your door for £16.99 from Amazon.
