So, farewell then, Bounty bars (maybe). It has been announced that its much-maligned miniature version could soon be scrapped from tubs of Celebrations – Mars is trialling their removal after 39% of the people it polled said they hated them. The mood, in my own household at least, is mutinous.
Anyone who has worked in an office in December will have seen the Bounty languishing at the bottom of the tub long after all the other chocolates have been picked. As somebody who was invariably picked last for every single team sport at school, to the point where a pitying teacher appointed me “assistant referee”, I’ve always had an instinctive sympathy with the coconut-filled underdog.
Why, I’ve often wondered, do people hate them so much? I think it’s partly the wrapper: the photorealistic 1980s beach design has unfortunate echoes of an oiled-up Ray Winstone in Sexy Beast. But in fact, the Bounty’s history goes back much further. It was launched in the UK in 1951, as a homage to the Mounds bar, a two-piece American creation that paired dark chocolate with shredded, sweetened coconut. The timing wasn’t coincidental: Bounty spoke to the country’s new mood of postwar optimism and people’s longing for sunny foreign travel. The ripples in its coating conjure waves lapping on a distant sandy shore, and early ads praised “the new chocolate thrill from the South Seas”.
True to the era, it is a genuine mid-century design classic: a Bounty’s almond-shaped curves wouldn’t disgrace a Danish coffee table. In 2009, Mars actually tried to trademark the ergonomic squoval shape; how fickle these confectionery giants are. If the company spent its money on a packaging redesign (rather than, say, publicity stunts), it could have a Tunnocks Teacake-esque hit on its hands.
I’m virtually alone among my friends in my Bounty trutherism. “They taste like getting suncream in your eyes,” said one, when I told them I was writing this piece. “Eating them is a huge red flag, they suck all the moisture out of your mouth,” shuddered another. My response has always been that of a dyed-in-the-wool Trotskyite being told that communism doesn’t work: they just haven’t done Bounty properly yet.
The first issue is that very few people I know are storing their Bounty bars correctly. They should always be eaten straight from the fridge, in order to maximise the delightful contrast between the snap of the (surprisingly thick) chocolate and the coconut filling. Left out, the different layers become harder to distinguish, and the coconut loses some of its refreshing mouth feel. It’s also a sad loss that many people have only ever tried the milk chocolate iteration, which, even for a Bounty aficionado like me, can verge on sweetness overload. The dark chocolate-enrobed Bounty, however, is a genuinely grownup creation that wouldn’t disgrace a restaurant menu – Australia rightly cherishes its Cherry Ripe bars, which hit similar notes. If Mars is going to sideline anything in the Celebrations tub, it should be the pappy and indistinct Milky Way. Or perhaps it should consider a miniature version of the dark Bounty in the tub?
In my other life I write romantic comedies, and as any connoisseur of Netflix Christmas specials will be aware, the darkest hour is always just before dawn. On some level, I think, Mars knows this, and is readying itself for a Bounty redemption narrative – last year it ran an ad in which one fell in love with an equally overlooked Brussels sprout. The Bounty-less selections of Celebrations, meanwhile, will be stocked in just 40 Tesco stores, which works out at less than 1% of its footprint. Those of us in London, Birmingham and Leeds can still get our hands on the untampered-with tins. Use them or lose them, folks – if reading this has stirred something in you, consider it your rallying cry to become a Bounty hunter.
Emma Hughes is a food writer and the author of No Such Thing As Perfect
