20 April 2012

Nestle New Rolo Bar (WH Smith) [By @Cinabar]


This new bar from Rolo is flat. Rolo’s are round, it’s ‘their thing’. As such, I can’t help thinking this bar is a bit of a strange idea. Even the name Rolo sounds round, it’s an abbreviation of the word roll, with an extra ‘o’ to really emphasis the circular nature of the product! So what is going on here?
The chocolate in the bar is the same as the chocolate in regular Rolos, but the new shape means that there is more of it in ratio to the caramel. It turns out that this isn’t a good thing, the chocolate isn’t that impressive and you notice it a lot more when it is in bar format. There doesn’t seem to be enough cocoa flavour, and it’s not a very defined or clean taste. The caramel inside the bar, is still perfectly tasty and oozes sweetness, there just isn’t enough of it to bring it back.
Following on from a conversation at work, I recently put a poll on this website asking whether or not chocolate tasted better in egg format compared to being in a bar. The results were surprisingly mixed, with 45% of people agreeing that they thought that chocolate does taste better shaped like an egg. For me the reverse is true for Rolos, they changed the format, and it doesn’t taste as good. The explanation for this is more around the amount of chocolate compared to the caramel and how the percentage of this seems to have changed. I think it’s lost the balance it had before.
Rolos should be round, that’s my opinion, and it’s an association I am having problems ignoring. The bar was nice enough, but I think I’d rather have a tube of Rolos. Having said that, I wouldn’t pass up a packet of the essentially giant (but round) biscuit Rolos if anyone was offering!
By Cinabar

3 comments:

Avia Art said...

I remember a Rolo Bar from about ten years ago. Different shape to this one though.

cinabar said...

Was it still round? Because anything Rolo-y really should be!

Anonymous said...

No it wasn't round, was like Cadbury caramel so even less round! Was nicer tasting though, had more caramel which tasted less buttery than this one. Think there was a bar called Golden Cup also which was pretty much the same, also made by Nestlé.