I recently took a day trip into the States, and of course, I had to stop by a Cracker Barrel in order to pick up a candy I have a definite love/hate relationship with: Valomilk. Love, because when Valomilk is fresh, it’s delicious and easily among my favourites. Hate, because finding a fresh one is ridiculously hit-and-miss.
Each package of Valomilk contains two chocolate cups – each about the size of a Reese’s Big Cup – filled with a soft, flowing marshmallow centre. The marshmallow in here is very unique; it’s not fluffy at all (or at least it shouldn’t be, assuming it’s not too stale) and is similar in consistency to the caramel inside a Caramilk or Caramello. It has a satisfyingly rich vanilla taste, and combined with the better-than-average milk chocolate, it thoroughly hits the spot.
As you can see from the picture, both cups suffered from a bit of leakage, which seems to be the norm with these (in fact, I think I got lucky with the minimal amount of leaking in these cups – I’ve seen far worse). The only way to ensure that you get a pair of cups without too much damage is to stand there in the store and feel the tops of each package, until you find one that feels smooth.
Of course, this being Valomilk, staleness has reared its ugly head – while I’ve had much worse, these cups were already a bit past their prime. You can’t tell from the picture, but the flowing marshmallow had started to partially solidify in certain areas.
Which leads me to this: I have some advice for the good folks at the Russell Sifers Candy Company: change the packaging. Seriously. Change the packaging. What you’ve got right now, which I can only assume is sealed by hand, is completely inadequate. Maybe it has some kind of old-timey appeal, but I couldn’t care less about that. You need to completely overhaul your packaging to maximize the freshness of the product. When buying your candy is like rolling the dice at a craps table, you know you’ve got trouble.
I have a suggestion: lose the flimsy paper wrapper. It does absolutely nothing to protect the delicate cups, nor does it particularly do much to slow down the product’s disconcertingly fast march towards staleness. Perhaps a small cardboard box would work better; one just big enough for the two cups so they don’t slide around at all. And vacuum pack it. I know this will be more expensive. You’ll have to raise the price. Do it! I’d pay double if I knew that I was almost certainly going to get a fresh product. I don’t buy nearly as many of these as I used to, and it’s only because finding a completely fresh, undamaged one is sort of like finding a four-leaf clover.
Finally, you need to print a “best before” date on the packaging. I know you’ll probably lose some money once the product goes past its date, and people no longer want to buy it, but in the long run I’m sure you will gain sales. People will be much more likely to buy your product if they know it’s going to be (reasonably) fresh. Perhaps I’m wrong, though I suspect otherwise.
This is starting to get a bit long, so let’s just say that I think Valomilk is great, but with a few substantial caveats. I’m going to give it three-and-a-half chips; at its best it easily deserves four, but finding a pristine Valomilk is much harder than it should be.
Manufactured by: Russell Sifers Candy Company
Calories (2 cups, 57 g): 260