February 21st: Cadbury SpotsVStripes The Big Race

Kcal 265 Fat 15.1g Fat(sats) 8.0g Carbs 29.3g (per 50.0g bar)

On your marks ... Get set ... GO!!! Phase 2 of Cadbury's SpotsVStripes campaign starts today with the National launch of the Cadbury SpotsVStripes The Big Race bar. Last week I was approached by the Cadbury's SpotsVStripes Twitter feed team, who asked me if I wanted a sneak preview of this latest 'The Big Race' project. Of course I didn't turn them down, and just a few days later I was the recipetent of a jam packed press release pack containing: 3 x 'The Big Race' bars, 1 x pen, 1 x SpotsVStripes playing cards, 2 x bookmarks and lastly a wad of papers containing all the information I needed to know about 'The Big Race' campaign (so I thought).
So what is 'The Big Race' all about then? Well to be totally honest with you, despite the wealth of documentation included in my PR pack, I still don't 100% know. From what I can gather, each Big Race bar includes a code on the inside of the wrapper that you have to enter at www.spotsvsstripes.com/bigrace. This is unfortunately where details get a bit sketchy - 'Who's the fastest? Race for your team using the code inside the wrapper' is the single bit of information given on the wrapper. I'll save you all from my marketing spiel about how this ambiguity wont prompt your average consumer to take part in this competition, for my response to your comments.

Lets talk about more important things - 'The Big Race' bar itself! Described as 'Crispy wafer with cocoa creme and biscuit pieces with Cadbury milk chocolate', it at least sounded like a totally new bar for the UK market and credit must be given to Cadbury for making something a lot more interesting than their first Cadbury SpotsVStripes offering. Praise must also be given to Cadbury for not skimping on the size of the bar, which was a sizeable 50.0g despite it's heavy wafer constituents. Taking the bar out of it's wrapper, my mind was immediatedly cast back to my experience with the Cadbury Tokke (a bar I bought from Spain - See HERE). The unbranded, single piece bar didn't strike me as being British made, indeed a quick check of the wrapper revealed the words 'made in the EU for Cadbury Bournville, Birmingham' (NOTE: Currently awaiting information from SpotsVsStripes as to where it was made).
You may have already picked up on the absence of the words 'Dairy Milk' so far in this review, and unfortunately I can confirm that for the second SpotsVStripes bar it was once again MIA. The chocolate that coated the bar was instantly recogniseable as Cadbury with it's sugary, milky taste, but again one couldn't help but be disappointed with the lacking cream based taste and thick textural feel of Cadbury's lead recipe. On a more positive note, the textural interplay of the four core constituents - the outer chocolate, wafer, cocoa cream and biscuit pieces, was delightful and made for an interesting variety of mouth feel sensations. Flavourwise I was hoping for a little more from both the wafer and cocoa creme layers, as they only added minor notes of malt and sugar respectivelly. There was however, a far more telling contribution from the small biscuit pieces which offered the desired flavour progression in the form of some buttery shortcake flavour bursts.

Overall whilst this bar is undoubtedly superior compared to the first SpotsVStripes offering, it is one that I feel could have been made even better with just a few minor adaptations. The lack of Dairy Milk chocolate is a particular sore point for me. The last couple of new Cadbury products I have tried recently have been lacking Cadbury's leading chocolate recipe, and I really hope this isn't a trend that will continue in the future - just give us your best chocolate guys!!! Another slight disappointment for me were the layers of wafer, which have to be said were not only light in texture, but also light in the flavour department. The things that I think the bar did well were that although not being Dairy Milk, the Cadbury chocolate was still altogether tasty and the biscuit pieces ensured that the overall taste was at least progressive to some degree. As far as the total 'The Big Race' campagin goes I will have to reserve judgement until I can fully scope out the construct of the project. Now it's over to you guys - what do you make of 'The Big Race'? Most importantly what do you make of the bar? I would love to hear your thoughts.

7.8 out of 10