Crunch Archives - Candyrageous

July 15, 2020January 10, 2021 Michael

Crunch – New and Not-So-Improved

Candy Bars, Chocolate

You may not realize this, but you couldn’t buy Crunch for a little while; in 2018, Nestle sold Crunch to Ferrero, who pulled it off the shelves so that they could “reformulate” it.

Well, it’s back, and either I’m remembering Crunch being better than it was, or it’s gone down in quality. Which is weird; you’d think the jump from Nestle to Ferrero (the makers of Nutella, Ferrero Rocher, and many other delicious things) would be a clear upgrade. Alas.

Still, it’s not bad. It’s also not “good” per se; the chocolate is fairly bottom-of-the-barrel, with a generic sweetness and not a whole lot going on in the flavour department, and even the crispy rice is a bit more anemic than you’d expect (it’s mildly crispy, but the texture isn’t quite there).

Also, this is purely psychological, but I miss the old design of the bar, with the big embossed “Crunch” lettering. The new segmented bar is boring in comparison.

And yet… I mostly enjoyed it. The chocolate has a nice creaminess, and while the rice doesn’t bring the assertive crunch you’re looking for in a bar called Crunch, it still has enough of that creamy/crispy contrast to be satisfying. If I didn’t have nostalgia for the old Crunch bar my opinion on this would probably be a bit lower, but I do, so here we are. I didn’t particularly like it at first, but it (mostly) grew on me.

Manufactured by: Ferrero
Nutritional info (1 bar, 43.9 grams): 230 calories, 12 grams of fat (8 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat), 5 mg of cholesterol, 60 mg of sodium, 29 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fibre, 24 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein.
Ingredients: milk chocolate (sugar, chocolate, cocoa butter, nonfat milk, milkfat, lactose, soy lecithin, natural flavour), crisped rice (rice flour, sugar, barley malt, salt).

March 18, 2009January 10, 2021 Michael

Buncha Crunch – A Big Downgrade from the Bar

Candy Bars

The combination of puffed rice and milk chocolate is definitely a good one, so I enjoy eating a Crunch bar every now and then, even if the quality of the chocolate is a bit on the iffy side. Buncha Crunch is essentially just a bite-sized version of Crunch, so it should pretty much taste the same, right? Well…

Buncha Crunch consists of little clusters of puffed rice covered in milk chocolate. Its main problem is that the ratio of chocolate to puffed rice is way off – it’s not nearly chocolately enough. It’s pretty crunchy, but the chocolate seems to be holding the rice together more than anything else. So if you’re craving chocolate, this isn’t going to do it for you. What little chocolate there is isn’t particularly good; it’s more sweet than anything else.

I was really not enjoying this at all to start with, though it did sort of grow on me as I ate it. Despite that, there’s no reason at all to pick this over a Crunch bar other than the convenience factor (Crunch bars tend to be a bit crumbly and messy, so they’re tough to eat on the go).

Manufactured by: Nestle
Calories (34 g package): 160

October 24, 2008January 10, 2021 Michael

Crunch Crisp – An Uninspired Twist on a Classic Bar

Candy Bars

There was a time, a few years back, when new candy bars were a fairly regular occurrence. It was always exciting to walk into the store and see a brand new candy bar you’ve never heard of before. I guess at some point the candy manufacturers realized that they could make more money by releasing variations on existing bars rather than introduce something completely new. So now whenever there’s a new bar, it’s always some twist on a currently available candy, no matter how tenuous the connection is with the original product.

The original Crunch bar, containing milk chocolate and puffed rice, is a classic. Crunch Crisp adds wafers filled with “chocolate crème” to the mix, and replaces the milk chocolate with fake chocolate (i.e. the dreaded mockolate). I generally don’t mind when a candy bar like this is coated with mockolate; it’s not exactly my preference, but there’s usually not a whole lot of it, and it tends to take a backseat to the other ingredients.

The mockolate here doesn’t necessarily hurt the bar, but it certainly doesn’t help it either. The main problem with this bar is that it doesn’t really taste like anything. It has an amorphous sweetness, but none of the ingredients really contribute any particular flavour – the wafers and puffed rice add crispiness but don’t taste like much, and the chocolate crème is sweet without having a strong chocolate flavour. The whole thing is covered in mockolate, which is also lacking in the taste department, and of course has that slightly waxy texture all mockolate tends to have.

That’s not to say that this is a horrible bar, simply one that epitomizes the word “meh.” If there’s one lying around, I guess I’ll eat it, but it’s not something that I’m going to be running to the store to buy again.

Manufactured by: Nestle
Calories (49.3 g bar): 240