September 2022

Crunky Pop Joy "Strawberry"

Lotte

There are two things I dislike about this candy, and one thing I thought worked pretty well. By this simple math I'm basically saying that this candy is OK, but it's not that great. Fortunately the two things I don't like about this candy aren't that bad, they're just things that could be improved to make this into a really great candy.

The first thing I don't like about this candy is the strawberry flavour. I don't dislike the idea that it is strawberry flavoured, after all strawberry and chocolate work well together most of the time. My problem is the quality of the strawberry flavour, and the fact that it was so fake. Real strawberry and chocolate work’s well together, even if it's a dried strawberry, but fake strawberry and chocolate just leaves a bad taste in my mouth, literally. The other thing I dislike about these chocolate balls is the quality of the chocolate. It's super shiny, and doesn't melt very well in your mouth. This mixed with the cheap strawberry flavour ruined this treat for me.

The feature I liked about this treat is the crunchy rice crisps. The centre of each ball is brimming with fun little crunchy bits. These crunchy bits give this such a great texture and make them very fun to bite into. It may seem like a minor thing, compared to the cheap chocolate and fake strawberry, but frankly it's the hardest thing to get right.

If you wanted to improve the chocolate, simply buy higher quality chocolate, if you want to improve the strawberry, consider using real (or more real) strawberry flavouring. These are simple fixes, the nice blend of crisps to chocolate is something that takes research and development departments years to figure out and they got it right.