According to the good people at Mars, 70% of confectionery is bought on impulse, and impulse purchases are driven by brands. These are pretty believable sounding statistics, especially when I try to count how many Mars Delight bars I've scoffed in the past few years. Now, I'm sure everyone here has heard of the Mars Bar and a large percentage has tried it; I'm sure that most of you have heard of the Deep Fried Mars Bar (and a somewhat smaller number of you have actually put that in your mouths); but have you tried Mars Delight?

Although the Mars Bar has been around in some form or another since 1920, Mars Delight was only created in 2002, so in terms of the Mars family, it's one of the newborns. Originally aimed to appeal to women - especially those watching their weight - does the product successfully reach its target audience? And more importantly, does it taste good?


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THE LOOK
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The product is packaged in a long slim wrapper, with a creamy coloured background. The distinctive red "Mars" logo is there, with a hint of the familiar black colour in the form of a swirl behind this logo, but the packaging clearly promotes this product as being very different to the traditional Mars Bar.

For a start, choosing to go for a creamy colour rather than the black one used in the simple Mars Bar wrapper implies that there's a marked contrast, and that this product is much healthier. The word "Delight" is next to the "Mars" logo in a curly tipped font, with a white healthy colour used as the main colour for the word, with a gold outline and just a hint of a back shadow. You can see that this product is meant to be associated with the Mars Bar, but in the way that a good twin is compared to her evil brother. The Mars Bar is the seductive dark side, whilst the Mars Delight bar is for those plagued by their conscience.

To the right of the wrapper, there's a photo of both the stubby sized Delight bars, to reassure the consumer who thought that the product was broken in the centre, that the packaging contains two bars. The one on the right has had part sliced off to show you the way the insides are formed, so you know what you're getting yourself in for.

The packaging without a doubt pretends that the product is healthier than it actually is.


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THE TASTE
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Personally, whilst I love Mars Bars, the last time I ate one was probably over 5 years ago. They taste really soft and gooey and well, lovely, but they also taste well, heavy, and I can never finish a regular sized one in one sitting. Those Mars Minis are another story though...;)

With the Mars Delight, you bite and find yourself with a mouthful of the well-loved Mars chocolate, caramel flavoured cream and chocolate flavoured cream, and wafer curls for a wee bit of substance. By the time you've finished thinking about how the bar tastes, you've eaten it all. Start on the second bar and well, seconds later, that one's gone too and you feel cheated.

The Mars Delight bar does taste nice, but it also tastes a bit like you're eating air, because it's not filling in the slightest. However, science disputes the air theory as the product does contain calories and fat, and well, air isn't meant to do that.

The danger with this product is that you could easily eat several at the same time trying to draw out that taste and feel full, as it's difficult to register you've actually put a dent in your calorific intake for the day.


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INFORMATION FOR ALLERGY SUFFERERS
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Mars Delight bars come with a warning for traces of hazelnut and almond. Being a greedy pig, I've scoffed these bars throughout the UK and France (mainly because they're in all of the SNCF vending machines!) and can say from experience, that in most cases, the bars are fine.

However, I recently bought two multi-packs of five, from a supermarket in Scotland. One of the multi-packs was absolutely fine, but in the other, the bars were definitely contaminated with hazelnuts, so if you have a serious allergy to those, you better be careful. There was no visible evidence of nuts present, nor a marked smell, but there were definitely traces there, which would not be obvious to someone who did not have an allergy, but to the living allergy food product tester that is yours truly, I can vouch that there were small traces of hazelnut in the product.

If you have an allergy rating of 5 or above, I would definitely recommend avoiding these bars like the plague as some have the potential to make you seriously ill. Mars Delight is quite nice, but it's not tasty enough to make the prospect of anaphylaxis seem appealing. For everyone with lesser allergies - well, it's up to you if you want to take your chances or not. Having only come across a few contaminated products in my history of pigdom, it's not really enough to put me off for long. Like I said though, it's up to you to guage how serious your allergy is, and how you want to respond to that. As always, seek advice from a qualified health professional if you have any doubts about what you're doing to your body.


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INFORMATION FOR DIETERS
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Each product (two short bars packaged up as one long one) contains 222kcal, 1.8g of protein, 22.1g of carbohydrates and 14.0g of fat. For a product marketed at dieters, the caloric content is not bad for a treat, but the 14.0g of fat is on the high side. To be eaten in moderation if you're watching your weight. Don't let the marketing fool you, this product is /not/ brilliant for staying trim!

Since each wrapper contains two individual bars, it is possible to eat one and save the other for later, but given how both together do not manage to fill me up, I'm not convinced it would be possible to only eat what is essentially, half a chocolate bar. You may have more willpower though..!


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THE PRICE
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At the time of writing, a 40g bar costs 38p and a mult-pack of 5 is available for £1.08 from Sainburys. The price does fluctuate from supermarket to supermarket, but on average, I'd say these prices are reflective of how much it's always cost to buy Mars Delight.


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CONCLUSION
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Mars Delight does taste quite nice, but it won't fill a hole in your stomach. It's not as bad for you as the traditional Mars Bar, but it's not as good for you as its healthier competitors. In short... well, it's fairly average. It's worth eating if it's readily available in front of you for a reasonable price, but if you have to go out of your way to find one... It's not worth the bother.

I'd rather buy a 15p Milky Way and be done with it!