Perk

Cadbury

I can't say that I'm often disappointed with the quality of many (if any) Cadbury products, but this might be the first. If I followed the old proverb, "if you have nothing good to say, then don't say anything", this review would be over very quickly. Fortunately, I'm a candy reviewer, so it's my job to say something when there's nothing good to say.

The basic concept of this bar is completely un-original. This isn't something very new to Cadbury, and it's often the fault I find in Cadbury bars (not always though, they have a few very creative treats as well). The thing that lets Cadbury pass with their lack of creativity is the fact that they make simple treats extremely well. Cadbury is one of those companies that if I'm handed a simple block of chocolate, I'm pretty sure I'll be very happy with what I get. I've been on record saying that for mass-produced chocolate, Cadbury is one of the best quality chocolate bars in the world. So, although this treat isn't very creative, that's nothing really different from most Cadbury bars.

The problem with this bar is that the quality isn't that spectacular either. For a few years I would always look at bars that consisted mostly of wafers as being kind of cheap. I learned that the reason I didn’t like most wafer bars was because I hadn't tasted a well-made wafer bar before. Then I tried a few German and Austrian bars (in particular the Manner Bar) and realized that it is possible to do a wafer bar well.

It's all about the ratio of filling, the taste of the filling, and the quality of the wafer. Unfortunately, the Perk bar fails pretty badly at the ratio part. There's not nearly enough chocolate, and the filling is pretty thin as well. The taste of the filling is OK, but you can't really taste it very well because there isn't enough. The wafers are OK, but they're not spectacular. This bar just doesn't taste like anything except dry wafers.

If this was any other chocolate bar company then I wouldn't be so disappointed. The problem is that this is Cadbury, and they have a standard that is hard to beat. Unfortunately, this time they didn't even make it close to their own level of excellence.