Marmite cereal bars were recently being given away in my train station. Now I sit firmly in the "love" camp, so I was quite excited to try this new snack.

Now when I saw recent a poster campaign that turned out to be for a make-believe Marmite perfume called XO, I thought it was actually for a new brand of marmite that was extra strong - I spend three trips looking for it in my local supermarket. And it is in relation to this that I feel let down by the folks at Marmite. You see, these bars barely taste of the lovely stuff, they should probably be called "hint of marmite bars" as that is all you are getting.

I thought that this might be just me being too demanding, so I shared some free samples with the colleagues that would try them and they echoed my sentiments.

The bars are of puffed rice, and only weigh 25g - (the bar claims 16% of this is marmite, but I am not so sure), hence they are a fairly light snack and can be enjoyed guilt free unless you are on the Atkins. The texture of the bars is not an issue, they are perfectly crisp.

There is not much more to say than the above - they are quite nice, light bars of puffed rice, with a mild Marmite flavour, not for either haters of Marmite (obviously) or marmite heads either. I feel the company should have picked their side and stuck to it - giving more flavour to the fans. Sadly, a disappointment - some of the free samples are still sitting in my desk 2 or 3 months later...