Crunchie is a brand of chocolate bar with a centre of honeycomb/cinder toffee, manufactured by British confectionary company Cadbury, currently produced in Poland. It was originally launched by J. S. Fry & Sons in 1929; a very similar product named Violet Crumble was already invented in Australia in 1913. The Crunchie bar is widely available in several countries around the world and has also been grey imported elsewhere.

Variations

Like other chocolate brands, Crunchie brand ice cream bars and cheesecake are also sold in some countries. Such products contain nuggets of the honeycomb.

A number of limited edition Crunchies have been released over the years. For example in the late 1990s, a Lemonade flavoured bar was released in Britain, and a champagne-flavoured bar was launched for New Year's Eve 1999. In 2000 a short-lived, but successful, sister chocolate bar was launched, called Crunchie Tango. It was co-produced by Cadbury and Britvic and featured Tango Orange flavouring.

In 2010 Cadbury's launched Crunchie Rocks, a mixture of chocolate, cornflake and Crunchie.

In South Africa, Cadbury sold a white chocolate version in a blue wrapper until recently.

Manufacture

thumb|290px|A close-up of the bar's [[honeycomb toffee|honeycomb centre]]

During manufacture, the honeycomb toffee is produced in large slabs, and is cut up using a highly focused jet of oil, though in Canada rotary saws are used. The use of a blade would lead to fragmentation, while water would dissolve the honeycomb. Oil prevents both of these happening, and produces uniform sharp-edged portions. The honeycomb toffee is then covered with chocolate, cooled, and packaged.

Size

The Crunchie is sold in several sizes, ranging from "snack size" – a small rectangle – to "king size". The most common portion is a single-serve bar, about 1 inch wide by about 7 inches long, and about inch deep (2.5 cm × 18 cm × 2 cm).

Nutrition information

{| class="wikitable"

! rowspan="2" |Average values

! colspan="2" |British Crunchie

! colspan="2" |Australian Crunchie

|-

! Per 100 g

! Per<br>40 g bar

!Per 100&nbsp;g

!Per<br>50 g bar

|-

| Energy (kJ)

| 2020

| 775

|1950

|975

|-

| Energy (kCal)

| 465

| 185

|

|

|-

| Protein

| 3.0&nbsp;g

| 1.6&nbsp;g

|1.5

|<1.0

|-

| Carbohydrate

| 73.5&nbsp;g

| 27.8&nbsp;g

|80.5

|40.2

|-

| Fat

| 18.4&nbsp;g

| 7.6&nbsp;g

|14.8

|7.4

|}

Advertising

In Australia and New Zealand, Crunchie bars are widely known for having New Zealand's longest-running television advertisement, the "Crunchie Train Robbery" which won many awards and ran in unchanged form for over 20 years from the late 1970s.

Crunchie has been advertised in Britain and Ireland since the 1980s with the slogan "Get that Friday feeling". Prior to the 1980s, Crunchie was advertised as "Crunchie makes exciting biting". In 1991, Cadbury launched a TV ad campaign that made use of The Pointer Sisters song, "I'm So Excited", which became one of the longest running advert campaigns in television history, continuing to be used up until 2008. These ads were animated and produced by Aardman Animations.

Literary references

The Crunchie bar is mentioned in Enid Bagnold's 1935 novel National Velvet, as the Brown sisters' sweet of choice for the year.

Stuart buys Bertie a mint Crunchie bar in the 44 Scotland Street book The Importance Of Being Seven by Alexander McCall Smith.

See also

  • Violet Crumble
  • List of chocolate bar brands
  • List of confectionery brands

Notes

References

  • Get that Friday feeling
  • Cadbury UK