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Monday, June 30, 2008
Nestle Crunch (Now Even Richer Milk Chocolate)
When I was a kid I was a Krackel girl. I don’t know if I preferred the crisped rice and Hershey’s chocolate combination, the color red or simply couldn’t find the Nestle Crunch bar as often. Later when I moved to the west coast Krackels became pretty much impossible to find, so I sometimes picked up the Nestle Crunch bar. But then something happened, I’m not sure when, perhaps ten years ago ... the bars were utterly inedible. Bland, tastesless, waxy and too sweet. The crisped rice became less rice shaped and more like little spheres. So I stopped buying those, too. The last time I had a proper Nestle Crunch was about two years ago when I was photographing a bunch of candy bars and I was so underwhelmed I didn’t even bother to finish the bar.
So I was quite happy to see that Nestle may have improved the bar, or perhaps just restored it to its former glory. Since the new formula just came out, I was able to grab both the old and new versions for a head to head test.
The bars look the same, the molding is identical, the ingredients are even identical.
It tastes sweet, but kind of empty. There’s no real chocolate punch, just a hint of it. The crisped rice is great. It’s well dispersed, crunchy and has a slight hint of salt. But it’s not enough to carry the bland chocolate or overcome the lack of creamy texture. While the bar is attractive with the big words CRUNCH molded into it, I prefer the old bar which was segmented (and I believe slightly thicker to accomodate stacks of crunchies). This can still be simulated with the snack sized bars.
This flipped over bar shows the size of the crunchies. (As a comparison, this bar shows what the old Krackel looked like.)
It smells about the same, maybe a little maltier, but I had to allow for the fact that the new bar was, well, newer, so freshness could account for some of the differences. The texture of the chocolate did actually seem creamier, not quite as sweet and just a bit more chocolatey. Still, it’s not a great bar, it could be, but Nestle needs to use their premium chocolate that they’re so well known for in Europe to make it outstanding. It’s better but not enough to get me to start buying it, but I’ll certainly take it when offered. Related Candies
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Meticulously photographed and documented reviews of candy from around the world. And the occasional other sweet adventures. Open your mouth, expand your mind.
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COPYRIGHT NOTICEAll content (text and photos unless otherwise credited) is copyright 2005-2010 by Cybele May Please do not use my photos without prior permission directly from me, they represent what I ate in preparation for these reviews and are not to be used for other purposes. Design by Hop Studios &
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A crunchy, cereal-infused bar that I crave is the Ritter Sport Knusperflakes bar. YUMMY! I’ve pretty much lost faith in the big-label American candy companies. They are all bad - just mostly.
I was a Krackel girl too. The red wrapper sold me.
Its funny the claims that manufactures put on their bars sometimes…its nice to see someone actually taking an active step and comparing them. The Cunch bar we have here in the UK is a bit different to your one…its still pretty uninspiring stuff though and similarly not the greatest bar out there.
Jim
Nestlé‘s European chocolate is premium now? When did that happen as I was never aware of it, they’re substandard.
Terry - I should have linked up the actual premium Nestle stuff that I meant. Have you tried the Callier label stuff?
Jim - now I’m curious about the one available in the UK.
Sera - I wish I’d known that they were gone, I would have done a goodbye review.
April - yes, Knusperflakes is awesome, definitely right up there. I wonder if they make a crisped rice bar.
Cybele, have you tried the new Crunch Crisp bar? It’s EXCELLENT! I eat one almost every day at work :/ Not terribly sweet, nice and crunchy, but not dry. :D
Agree completely regading the mediocrity of the Nestle Crunch ( and other Nestle US bars).
Try the 365 Everyday Organic Swiss Chocolate with Rice Crisps bar sold at Whole Foods. Makes the Nestle Crunch bar or the Hershey Krackle completely irrelevant.
I haven’t had a full size Crunch bar in years. I am greatly intrigued by your observations and will have invest the 80cents!
Krackle Bar was made by combining Rice Krispies with chocolate just prior to moulding -Hershey’s Chocolate was made using whole milk and condensing it of course and cocoa butter. Krackle Bar started it’s decline when powered dry milk chocolate process replaced the whole milk chocolate with powered milk chocolate.
I tried the new even richer milk chocolate and was really disappointed. I contacted Nestle and Nestle explained they moved the operations from Brazil to the States. I used to always enjoy Nestle Crunch bar but these supposedly richer ingredients are just terrible and maybe they do use better ingredients or maybe not but to my taste buds, I just say no now to Nestle Crunch bar until Nestle brings back the Nestle Classic Crunch Bar. I prefer Coke that is at Costco with real sugar compared to corn syrup and the problem with the food in the States is that everything is so fake and artificial compared to the rest of the world where food is more natural.
I thought it was just me. The same thing i’ve noticed here with Twisties (thought it was my taste buds gone wrong), and now Nestle Crunch does not taste like it used to. It’s just so bland these days! Thank you for letting me know i’m not going crazy, and this phenomenon is also happening in Australia. I’m going to go check my choccy aisle straight away…
Crunch and Krackle, both awesome candy bars! Another great one with krispies inside is the French Lion bar. That’s a winner in my book! I think even my local grocery store carries it now in the international food aisle. I highly recommend trying that one out.
Nestle made a good CRUNCH BAR before 2003/
The Crunch bar started going downhill as soon as they closed the Fulton. NY plant. It was invented there and produced by a very seasoned staff. Nestle chocolate is pretty much second rate at this point.
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