Review | Snack Surprise – France

It’s time for another Snack Surprise review. I believe this will be the penultimate one since I cancelled my subscription and paid in quarterly stints. As always, it’s the Original Box I’m going to be rating, and this one came from France, so I had high hopes. It definitely brought back all the childhood memories and nostalgia – so let’s crack on.

Sweet

• Madeleine Chocolat: St Michel brings you these indulgent chocolate-coated madeleines

Sadly, they didn’t bring them to me. This product wasn’t in my box and there wasn’t a replacement or substitute. Not a good start, but I won’t be including this in my ratings (so the total will be out of 30).

• Petit Ecolier: indulgent ‘pocket’ biscuit combines LU’s crunchy butter biscuit with delicious milk chocolate

A really thick layer of creamy milk chocolate made this product a lot more exciting – as I found the biscuit quite bland otherwise. Nice enough but there are plenty of other products that I think are better (like Bahlsen Choco Leibniz).

• Chamonix a l’Orange: made using the same 100-year-old recipe, the Chamonix cake is filled with orange marmalade

These were OK. The cake itself was quite sweet and sticky and the orange flavour was more subtle than I was expecting. I love marmalade so was expecting a big zingy hit!

• LU Napolitain: delicious soft cakes from LU bring you the classic Napolitain flavour

Light, soft sponge but quite dry due to the numerous layers of cake.

• LU Grany: French cereal bar containing chocolate pieces, corn, rice flour, oat flakes and malted rye flakes

A really nice cereal bar. It actually tasted like chocolate and peanut butter to me. Chewy and delicious.

Savoury

• Best of Belin Crackers: France’s favourite crackers brand. This box gives you a selection of delicious Belin crackers

Savoury crackers in a variety of flavours including plain, poppy seed and cheese. The plain ones reminded me of Ritz crackers. Very nice.

• Fritelle Gout Bacon: these Lays bacon-flavoured crisps are the ultimate savoury snack

Basically, bacon flavoured Chip Sticks. Quite salty, but these were a hit with all the family.

Confectionery

• Haribo Dragibus: delicious fruit-flavoured sweets, loved by kids and adults

Haribo are elite-tier sweets and this variation we don’t get in the UK, so it was good to try them. They were like gummy dragees. Small ball-shaped sweets with a gummy centre and sugary shell coating.

• Carambar: Carambar is a traditional French treat. These soft and chewy sticks have a sweet caramel taste

Brought back so many memories – we used to do Calais day trips, and these would always end up in the trolley. The original ones are good, but I also love the fruit ones. Sadly, I don’t think the ‘elastic’ ones are in production anymore. And I now find myself searching online to buy Carambars…

• Haribo Orangina Pik: Haribo mix combining the tasty flavours of France’s favourite orange soda and classic Haribo sweet

Orangina is unreal and these Haribo sweets were lush. I was expecting them to be different flavours due to the different colours, but they all tasted the same. They weren’t that fizzy either – nowhere near as tangy as Tangfastics.

Drink

• Gini Lemon: this can of Gini Lemon soda is the perfect refreshing drink to enjoy on a hot summer’s day

What a surprise, I used this as mixer and had a Gini Lemonade… See what I did there?

And now to the ratings. There weren’t any products I disliked, and with not receiving one of the items, the total points are reduced. So, the French Snack Surprise box scores 27/30 – and here’s where it ends up on the leader board:

1. Netherlands – 94%
2. Spain (2020) – 94%
3. Spain (2022) – 94%
4. Italy – 92%
5. France – 90%
6. Portugal – 89%
7. Australia – 87%
8. New Zealand – 87%
9. Hungary – 84%
10. Greece – 82%
11. Sweden – 82%
12. Turkey – 81%
13. USA – 79%
14. Germany – 75%
15. Austria – 73%
16. Romania – 73%
17. Czech Republic – 70%
18. Bulgaria (2021) – 69%
19. Bulgaria (2022) – 67%

Interestingly, if I had scored it for all products, the France Snack Surprise box would have received 82% and featured a lot lower down in the rankings. Final box incoming and while we are staying in Europe, it’s not a country I’ve reviewed before – so watch this space…

Love, Lucy xx