Smarties > Reviews (41)

Many years ago when I was a schoolgirl and Rowntrees was still a company in its own right I lived in York. In the city of York there were certain smells which were strong and one of them was Chocolate. The smell of chocolate came from Rowntrees. I had the opportunity to go and visit Rowntrees factory in York. I can not remember much about the visit but one thing I do remember were the Smarties.

As we went round the factory floor we passed and area where small circles of milk chocolate were moving, and cooling. Our tour guide, though not supposed to, gave us a few discs of chocolate. This was the best chocolate I had ever tasted! The discs were then coated with a sugar shell and these were put into big concrete mixers. As the white Smarties went round in the drum they were coloured by someone putting the dye in on their hand. The Smarties were then coated in a shiny wax to make bright coloured attractive sweets to be sold. In those days there were six colours of Smarties Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Dark brown and Light brown. The orange Smarties were everyone’s favourites as they were the ones with the added flavour, orange flavoured Smarties. My mother used to tell me about other flavours for the Smarties from her youth.

I have heard of mothers who can not let their children eat the red Smarties due to the colouring which makes them hyperactive.

Smarties have been around for a very long time, as far as I am concerned they have been around for ever and there have been very few changes. The only flavoured Smartie is still the orange one. A few years ago they introduced a new colour turquoise. The packaging for Smarties has not changed a lot. Smarties come in a cardboard tube with a cardboard base and a plastic lid. Tubes of Smarties are a good size for a snack. On each of the lids is a letter, which can be very useful for children’s games. I have a jar of Smartie lids for my children’s entertainment! Smarties can also be bought in boxes the larger boxes for sharing and individual boxes for treats. The little boxes come in very useful for mathematics teaching!

A recent addition to the Smartie range has been Smartic frost bites. These are white chocolate discs in sugar coating. The colours of these are pale white, blue, purple and pink. Unmistakably Smarties I found these to be a bit disappointing as I am not so fond of white chocolate but the children devoured the tubes they had. I do not think these will be around for long as I have found them for sale at 10 tubes for £1 in a discount store.

Smarties were really good sweets when I was a child and my children love them too but they are no longer made by Rowntrees as they were bought out by Nestles sometime ago. Since Nestles have owned the Rowntree trademark I am convinced that the quality of their chocolate has deteriorated and so the products are not as good as they used to be. Maybe I am just getting old.

Now you can get Smartie ice cream, Smartie Ice lollies who knows what else they will come up with to take more of our money!