No banging here! (Terry's Chocolate Orange Sensations)

Member Name: yackers1

Product:	Terry's Chocolate Orange Sensations
Date:	09/01/09 (193 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: 5 easily identifiable flavours, good quality, great tasting

Disadvantages: Too much packaging,

The chocolate orange represents Christmas and it is something that I only eat over the festive period. Up until now, I have always stayed away from the individually wrapped segments, deciding to stick to the more traditional 'whole' orange that requires bashing on a hard surface for a few minutes to separate the segments of orangy tastiness.

My mother was clearing out her cupboards after the New Year and came across a packet of Terrys orange segsations and since she is on a diet (like she is at the start of every year) she decided to donate them to me. Not wanting to be ungrateful I took them and thought I would give them a try and then share my thoughts with you all.

****Packaging****

These chocolate segments are packed in a very nice 'rounded' container made out of sturdy plastic. The net weight is 330g of chocolates.

It is easy to see the Terrys branding on the container as it consists of a blue/purple background with "chocolate orange segsations" written in orange. The colours are bright, vivid and in your face. There is also a picture of each of the segments on the front clearly displaying the contents of the box.

I think that the marketing team have done a fantastic job and the packaging really does scream out "look at me" to capture the attention of the consumers and prompt the impulse buy, which is probably why this product was flying off the shelves over the Christmas period.

Personally, I think that there is far too much packaging with this product. The container is a nice touch and if given as a gift it is a nice package, but it is still unnecessary. Some may argue that the container can be used for other things such as storage solutions, as a money box, to keep other chocolates, for show et. Etc there are lots of potential uses but who actually reuses them for the long term? I think that most of these bought over the Christmas period are now sitting in a landfill somewhere.

In addition to the container each segment is individually wrapped. I appreciate that this is to keep them separate and to stop cross-contamination of flavours etc but there are more efficient and environmentally friendly ways of achieving this.

****Smell****

Upon opening the plastic container then is an instant smell of gorgeous chocolaty orange, which is not surprising. What I did find surprising was the potency of it. The orange smell is very strong and almost overwhelming, unlike that of the original chocolate orange.

****Taste****

The taste of this is exactly as it says on the tin. Orange flavoured chocolate. Whilst the smell of the orange is a bit over powering it does not come through too strong in the taste test.

The orange/chocolate taste is exactly the same as that found in the original Terry's Chocolate orange, which in my opinion is the original and the best.

The dark chocolate with the orange is very good and I prefer this to the milk chocolate/orange combination.

****Segments****

The benefit of buying this product is that the consumer has 5 different flavour segments to choose from including:

"Milky" - this is basically the original chocolate orange flavour and consists of a solid segment. It is covered in a purple coloured wrapper.

"Honey comb" - This is like a crunchy covered in orange flavoured chocolate and has a strange texture as the honeycomb centre melts in the mouth, which is something I am not overly keen on. This is covered in an orange coloured wrapper.

"Dark" - This is orange flavoured dark chocolate and consists of a solid segment. It is covered in a red coloured wrapper.

"Crispy" - This is like Kellogs Rice crispies bound together with an orange flavoured chocolate coating. This has a slightly crunchy texture that is very pleasant. This is covered in a light blue coloured wrapper.

"Crunchy" - This is like Kellogs cornflakes bound together with an orange flavoured chocolate coating. As its name suggests this has a very crunchy texture, which is a bit too much for me. This is covered in a yellow coloured wrapper.

****Ingredients****

The ingredients consist of the usual sugar, cocoa mass, milk, syrups and flavourings. There is no evidence of any of the dreaded E numbers, which is a good thing.

The milk chocolate contains minimum 25% cocoa solids and the dark chocolate contains minimum 45% cocoa solids so there is quite a high element of chocolate.

One thing I do find surprising is that there is no mention of how the crispy and crunchy elements are made. Surely there must be some rice or bran flakes or something like that to get the texture?

There is an allergy advice notice in that this product contains milk, soya and may contain traces of nut and wheat, so if you have problems with any of these this product is not going to be suitable for you.

****Nutritional information****

As with all chocolates these are not that good for you. The nutritional information for a 25g serving (5 individual segments) is as follows:

i) Energy - 130Kcal
ii) Protein - 1.7g
iii) Carbohydrate - 14.5g
iv) Fat - 7.1g
v) Fibre - 0.7g
vi) Sodium - 0.03g

The above confuses me. I would have thought that each different type would have slightly different nutritional values, especially since there is solid dark chocolate, solid milk chocolate and segments that are crunchy (although there is no indication in the ingredients of how this 'crunch' is achieved).
I assume that there will not be that much in it and guess it does not matter at the end of the day but it would be nice to know which ones you can really indulge on and which ones are best off left alone.

****Conclusion****

I have to admit that these are nice for a change. The different textures of the honey comb centre and crunch is a nice touch, although I would not eat these regularly.

I would eat the dark chocolate flavour more regularly if it was more readily available but I have not seen it in any supermarkets, which I guess is not such a bad thing.

Whilst the packaging is attractive and could, arguably, used for many other things I think that it is over the top and unnecessary. I can't understand why these chocolates could not be put in a recyclable cardboards box. And instead of individually wrapping the chocolates they could be put in different compartments of the box, hence reducing the waste further.

These chocolates are of the same quality as the original chocolate orange which is to be expected since they are all made by Terrys. These chocolates are not an original chocolate orange though, and in my opinion should not be branded as such, although I can see that Terrys has established a strong brand over time and they are looking to capitalise on this for as long as possible.

Whilst I enjoyed these I doubt I will bother in the future and will stick to the original, which is still the best.

Summary: An ok alternative although I prefer the original