Thursday, December 12, 2013

A new hierarchy for chocolate selection tins

Lack of Quality Street, more like
A trip into the heaving metropolis that is Basingstoke for Christmas shopping, and I suddenly become aware of the hierarchy surrounding that essential purchase: The Christmas chocolate selection tin, one per family member.

And it appears from the pricing that certain supermarkets are also aware of the fact that some brands are more desirable than others, millions of tins of Quality Street (the chocolate selection box for your granny and the tell-tale sign of a last-minute present purchase), clearly priced to clear at a I'm-still-not-buying-that £3.50.

If there was a league table of chocolate selection tins, it would be the Johnny-come-lately Manchester City-types leading the way, with the old brands threatened with the drop

CHOCOLATE LEAGUE PREMIER DIVISION

1. Celebrations
2. Heroes
3. Roses

--- RELEGATION ZONE ---

4. Quality Street
Get you act together, Quality Street, or you'll find yourself in the second division with the supermarket-own brands and the Matchmakers.

19 comments:

Enzyme said...

No, no, no.

It'd used to be Heroes and Celebrations slugging it out for the top spot, with the latter usually winning it by a nose. Then Quality Street. Then a big gap down to Roses.

The current table stands like this: Celebrations, reasonably-sized gap, Quality Street, reasonably-sized gap, Heroes, small gap, Roses, but with Heroes in danger of slipping.

Happy to help.

Joe Scaramanga said...

I concur with Enzyme. I think Quality Street and Celebrations now slug it out for top spot.

Roses made some disasterous changes a few years back meaning almost all of them are now filled with sugary goo, whereas the QS still offers a good family friendly assortment to please everyone. Without even mentioning the beloved, much coveted, lesser spotter Green Triangle

broken biro said...

We tend to get boxes of all kinds from our 'borrowers' in the library where I work. Celebrations and Heroes go like shit off a shovel and we always end up with a massive surfeit of Quality Street toffees. SO I'm with you ScaryDuck. (Have you noticed how all the tins got smaller this year, too?)

TRT said...

Heroes are top, then Celebrations, then Roses, last Quality Street.

But then I buy one tin of each, mix a bowl up with 100g of each and monitor the results. The trick is to live with someone who actually likes the yellow tooth breaking toffee ones and leaves the green triangles and purple poobahs for us connoisseurs. I've also learned to buy early when the initial "two for £7" offers are on - as it gets past 7th December, the prices start to rise as the supply falls and demand increases.

Richard said...

1)Buy tins

2)Empty contents on to grateful tramp

3)Fill tins with caek.

WIN.

Gonzoland said...

Richard:
Caik in sardine tins?
Puken Hestenbarf

Anonymous said...

You have forgotten that all tins are smaller than last year, so it should probably read
1. []
2. []
3. []

...
...
...


--- RELEGATION ZONE ---


101. Celebrations
102. Heroes
103. Roses
104. Quality Street

TRT said...

What about Chocolate Orange segments?

Alicia Foodycat said...

With no relevance to anything chocolatey, I was telling someone today about your adoption of older dogs and we agreed that you have done a good thing. So well done you, validation by strangers.

Phil Parker said...

Can you neat the orange doodah in the Quality Street tin? No you can't.

The starwberry mush things though - work of the devil.

Bob H said...

I don't go shopping, but gratefully accept what's on offer. This left me in the strange position of not knowing what Heroes were. I have , of course, scoffed down plenty, but the branding did not stick.

I guess I was focussing on the lovely little familiar Cadbury bars while drooling and reflecting that it has been decades since I ate an actual full size Topic.

My favourite tin is the one with hard ones that most people don't like. I am also blessed with a wife who does not like nuts. This enables me to employ the "Uncle Tom Method". This particular old relative devours everyone else's favourites first, allowing him to have the bottom of the tin to himself!

Dioclese said...

The tins (well, cardboards actually) get smaller while the price stays the same. They think we don't notice....but we do!

Anonymous said...

Roses and Heroes - Cadbury - UK
Quality Street - Nestlé - UK

Celebrations - Mars - Revolted Colonies

Fi sir!
You are obviously not a patriot!

Hazel Nuttwipp said...

Cadbury's is owned by Mondelēz International inc
Nestlé is Swiss

Chocolate is forrin and may contain nuts.

Anonymous said...

As for the Mondelēz International thing, I'm still in denial 'bout that.
And Nestlé may be Swiss, but Switzerland is owned by The City - well, at least the German half anyway. The French half? Who cares.

Cacoa is indeed 'forrin' - comes from the New World it does.
Speaking of which, The Tutor used to get free meals in restaurants, back before the Internet, by betting the Chef that he knew exactly why Leonardo Da Vinci never had tomato sauce with his pasta and Henry VIII, as a child, never had chips with his fish - and could prove it.
The fools always bet him!
Then came the Internet. The Tutor goes to bed hungry now.
Tomatoes and potatoes come from the New World - no one in Europe had them until some time after 1492!
That goes for tobacco, coca, some beans, vanilla, cassava, peanut, and many others.
Curiously, and quite apropos, the Muscovy Duck - a relative of the Scary variant, is also of New World origin. Who knew?

Otter Nobetter said...

Back in Henry's days, beaver was a fish.

Anonymous said...

I reckon that was convenient. You know, for the Papists 'No-Meat Fish Fridays' and all.
I question whether those UK oiks hadn't rendered the poor castor extinct by that point though?
Caymen, capybara and manatee were also considered 'fish' in the ex-Inca lands of Papal beneficence. But not river otter - go figger.
Ha!
And the French call puffin a fish and the Michigan Yankees eat muscrat - with the face still attached!

Boleyn Allies said...

Mary Tudor's After VIII mints were terrible.

Anonymous said...

As are your horrid puns.