I'm not celebrating (Mars Celebrations)

Member Name: thespurs

Product:	Mars Celebrations
Date:	22/09/04 (278 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Mars, Snickers, Milky Way

Disadvantages: Topic , Galaxy

I have only ever had Celebrations once, although It could be argued that I have had the individual chocolates in their bar form. It was last Christmas and there was a huge tin of them sitting on the side, so I thought I would dip in for a Milky Way. There was also a tin Quality Street in the house and they were consumed far more rapidly.

Celebrations chocolates, are produced by Masterfoods. They are a huge global confectionary, drinks, food and pet food manufacturer. They have a large share of the confectionary market in the United Kingdom. They have a good pedigree and boast some of the biggest selling chocolate bars in the world. They hold a virtual monopoly of the cat food market, owning many of the top brands.

There are nine of some of the finest, and some of the nastiest, chocolate brands around contained within an individual pot of Celebrations. They are the following:

Milky Way – A milk chocolate covered soft nougat centred chocolate that comes in a blue and white wrapper. The words ‘Milky Way’ are written in red text. This is one of my favourite chocolates around and my favourite in this selection. It is simply delicious. (10/10)

Mars – This is similar to the Milky Way, but has dark nougat and a hint of caramel. It comes in a black wrapper and again the ‘Mars’ is in red a red font. This has to be my second favourite of the lot, as you may have gathered I am a fan of the soft nougat.
(8/10)

Snickers – This is yet again a soft centred chocolate with nuts and a hint of caramel as found in the Mars bar. It comes in a brown package and has blue writing. For me, this a chocolate that is bed eaten on the odd occasion so that you can really appreciate all of the different textures that are happening within it.
(8/10)

Maltesers – I may be wrong, but I have a feeling that this a newish addition to the Celebrations collection. It is an oval shaped chocolate with a milk chocolate covered biscuit core. The bubbles inside the biscuit seem to pop on your tongue if you gently suck the sweet. It comes in a red and silver foil. I wouldn’t normally buy a packet of these in the shop, but I don’t the odd one here and there.
(7/10)

Topic – This must be the most disgusting chocolate ever, the ugly duckling of the collection. You always end up with a load of these sitting unwanted at the bottom of the tin. It is a bizarre chocolate blending a Snickers with a Milky Way in many respects. The results of are terrible and think it tasted horrible. I think that this should be dropped from the line-up in future.
(2/10)

Bounty – It would be wrong of me to give this a bad rating, just because I don’t like coconut. On the face of it and from what people have told me, it is a very nice chocolate. A soft coconut centre is encased in a milk chocolate box. It comes in a blue and white wrapper. I have tried this once, only to spit it out again.
(5/10)

Galaxy – This is simply made with milk chocolate and is the equivalent to a Cadbury’s Dairy Milk. I would have to choose a Dairy Milk over this every time. It just doesn’t taste as nice and doesn’t seem to melt as nicely. It comes in a brown wrapper with Galaxy plastered across it.

(4/10)

Galaxy Caramel – This again, is the Celebrations take on a Dairy Milk Caramel. Rather unsurprisingly, I don’t rate this chocolate. It has a soft caramel centre and is encased in milk chocolate. The caramel doesn’t have a nice texture too it. It comes in a brown and yellow patterned wrapper.
(3/10)

Galaxy Truffle – I am not a great fan of truffles and this does nothing to change that feeling I have towards them. It is the same shape as the Malteser and comes in brown packaging. The central truffle is covered in a soft milk chocolate, but it really doesn’t taste that nice. I just can’t get my head around the idea of truffles, not for me.
(2/10)


I'm not criticising the actual idea, but I think this is just another shameful extension strategy by another multinational company. I don’t think that it is a huge benefit to have a lot of different chocolates thrown into one box, because it only encourages you to eat more of them. Firstly, they are only small so you don’t feel guilty if you keep dipping in and therefore eat more. Secondly, there are far more of them in a box than you would get in one bar.

The tin that I delved into, was 1.5kg in weight. It cost just under £10, although the price can vary dramatically. It tends to be inflated around Easter and Christmas time, because they are in a much higher demand. You do get a lot of chocolate for your money, but if you bought the equivalent weight in bars you would get it a lot cheaper.

The main rivals to Mars Celebrations are, Cadbury's Miniature Heroes. These are the Cadbury's version of Celebrations and probably their main competitors. They showcase many of the famous and successful Cadbury brands. The chocolates on offer include: Dairy Milk, Dairy Milk Caramel, Fudge, Crunchie and a few others. This is a very much similar make-up as we find in the Celebrations so it’s a harder choice to make; do you side with Cadbury’s or Masterfoods?

To conclude, I would always choose Miniature Heroes every time over Celebrations. They just don’t have quality chocolates right the way through. There are too many, around half, that I really don’t like. I think that they have just tried to increase the number of individual chocolates by including those that are rather sub-standard. The quality is fairly good, but the tastes and textures of some are just not good enough.

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