Few candies evoke childhood memories for me like Smarties. When I was little, I’d dump out a box and immediately begin separating them by color:
Yellow
Orange
Green
Blue (not a traditional color but I grew to love it)
Purple
Pink
and of course RED! Because you have to eat them LAST!
Today I opened a box of Smarties to make Halloween cookie pops to feature here on Notes From the Cookie Jar. I dumped them into the bowl and…what?!?!
What the hell is with these technicolor candies? They look like Skittles! These weren’t Smarties. They were impostors. Gone was the green and blue, and why was the normally pastel purple and pink now so bright they blended with the red? And why are the brown ones black? They looked like cheap, bulk bin wanna-be Smarties. Surely there must be a mistake, so I ate one.
The verdict?
I almost spit it out.
Nestle, I’m trying to be fair here, but the new Smarties are just absolutely gross. Maybe you thought you were giving people what they wanted by introducing “No artificial coloring” Smarties, but come on-we’re talking CANDY here. Candy! It’s not supposed to be healthy.
The irony is that by making a product without artificial coloring, the end product is something that has a gross, artificial, chemically after taste to it. Especially the most iconic color of all..RED!
Your site says that they taste the same, in fact…better!
I strongly disagree. The non-artificial color stuff tastes AWFUL.
I HATE THEM.
YES. HATE. THEM.
Did you hear me? Should I say it again? Or how even plain M&Ms, which I’ve never really liked, taste BETTER?
For years, I used to say how Smarties were SO much better than M&Ms, and pitied my American friends for having to go without. I used Smarties to decorate cupcakes, in cookies, trail mix, as snacks, in ice cream, on brownies, and to eat just because. Once my screen name was even Red_Smartie. I was going to feature them here in the Cookie Jar and rave about how wonderful they are because Smarties were one of THE favorite candies in our house.
Now? Now I’m just disappointed and sad. Sad because you took a perfectly good product beloved by MILLIONS of Canadians, and you ruined it.
RUINED IT.
The true test came when my 13 year old wandered into the kitchen, saw the Smarties sitting on the counter, and reached to sneak a few.
“What the HELL is wrong with these Smarties?” he sputtered, making a face. “They taste NASTY!” He pushed the bowl back on the counter and refused to touch them. There they sat, for two whole days, and not one person in the house would eat them.
I ended up throwing them away.
If you only knew how much this house adores chocolate, and especially Smarties, you’d realize just how BAD they must be for us to throw them away. Normally they would not have lasted longer then 5 minutes. Did you know that we have bought a box of Nestle favorites every single year for Halloween almost as long as Jake has been alive? Or that we’d give away all the Aero and Coffee Crisp bars to trick or treaters, specifically so we could eat the leftover Smarties?
Today, as I stood in the candy aisle and contemplated my choices for candy to give for Halloween, I did something I have never done before.
I bought Cadbury treats instead.
You RUINED them, Nestle.
Tags: candy, Nestle, new smarties
I’ve actually never liked Smarties. I hated the taste. (hmm, wonder if I’ll like them now). But I agree, I liked the old colours, primary colours. They were great for kids and sorting. Now I have an excuse to continue not liking them
Give me an M&M anyday (peanut please)
Oh no, hadn’t realized they changed one of my favourite candies! What’s next, pigs flyng? dogs and cats living together? It will all be mass hysteria I tell you!
I TOTTALY AGREE. wtf is with smarties they taste horrible and they took away green and blue!
Smarties are my favorite candy since childhood. I bought a pack of smarties from a corner store and they tasted like medicine so I threw them out because they were probably old/expired or whatever. Next day I go grab a pack from a reliable grocery store and they still taste like medicine and then I noticed…NO ARTIFICIAL COLORS.I logged onto their site and read “Does this change the taste?” “No” Complete bullshit. They ruined my favorite candy. I managed to grab 5 or 6 packs of the non artificial stuff and those will be my last packs. They are disgusting now. I thought the exact same thing when I was thinking about it.. if people are eating candy, artificial flavors should be the last thing on their mind.
The best part is that one of their natural ingredients is Cochineal, which is an insect and was for a long time one of the only sources of red dye. Bug bits, you see, are completely natural ingredients! They should advertise it like that, “Now with 50% more bug bits! But hey, it’s natural!” Thanks, but I’m perfectly fine with eating the regular synthetically produced food safe colors.
Guess where the natural dye comes from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochineal
Completely agree about the new Smarties. They’re wretched. Spread the word. Maybe if they don’t sell, they’ll bring the real ones back.
I have tweeted, blogged, and basically screamed my head off to Nestle about how horrid those new smarties are, and have not received a reply. M&Ms, on the other hand, have chatted with me and when I tried the dark chocolate ones, I swooned. From now on I recommend you try dark chocolate M&Ms, not just because they taste good but because they actually talk to their customers.
Me too. Cochineal is pretty gross if you ask me. Synthetic isn’t bad! It tasted good!