Cadbury Picnic

Product name: Cadbury Picnic
Purchase details: £1.00 for a multipack of three bars (Poundland)
Calories: 230 per 48.4g bar
Country of origin: Europe

The Picnic seems to be one of Cadbury’s lesser known products – it’s not a bar I see around all that often and it must have been over a decade since my last one so I could barely remember what they were like!

The purple wrapper boasted ‘a feast-full’ of caramel (32%), peanuts (12%) and raisins (7%) and these three ingredients were each represented around the brand name – I particularly liked the way the caramel was used as a border. However, beneath the chocolate that contained a minimum of 14% milk solids, lurked another significant ingredient: ‘crispy’ rice cereal (10%).

This particular multipack had been produced by Kraft Foods and I couldn’t believe how huge each bar felt on removal from the main packaging. However, on opening the individual wrappers, I realised that, whilst the bars were very long, there were also relatively thin. That said, they had a very rugged appearance, and the caramel was clearly holding the individual elements together. Despite not being mentioned in the main product description, the cereal was definitely a big feature, whilst the raisins were a lot less visible and nowhere near as big as the Nestlé Yorkie: Raisin & biscuit.

The Picnic mainly smelt of sweet chocolate but the aroma did hint at the fact there was more going on beneath the surface and I was pleased to find that each ingredient made its own significant contribution to the whole. The peanuts provided flavour (although not lots) and a bit of a crunch within the crispy chewiness provided by the cereal and caramel. (For the record, this overall texture was perfectly balanced so that the bar wasn’t hard work to eat.) As for the raisins, I found there were more of these further down the bar than first appeared, and they produced an extra chew and an occasional additional sweetness.

Thinking of the Picnic as a whole, I realised that it was essentially a cereal bar in reverse, with a proper chocolate coating rather than the silly drizzles some brands include in an attempt to make a seemingly healthy product a bit more exciting. In this case, though, the overall flavour was a general sweetness that came from the individual components, and the thicker-than-normal chocolate layer provided an alternative method of consumption since the bar was also enjoyable to let melt, and it added a nice juiciness to combine with the raisins and caramel.

This was certainly a decent product but, although individual elements were noticeable, the main flavour wasn’t particularly exciting and, I guess, it felt a bit too healthy for my liking, bearing in mind it was an unhealthy snack!

Appearance: 7.5/10
Aroma: 7/10
Taste: 7/10
Texture: 8/10
Overall score: 7.38/10