Toffee Crisp
The Toffee Crisp bar is a chocolate bar first manufactured in the United Kingdom by Mackintosh's in 1963. It is now produced by Nestlé in the UK. It consists of puffed rice embedded in soft toffee and shaped into a rectangular cuboid, the whole bar being covered by milk chocolate.
History
Toffee Crisp chocolate bars were first produced in the United Kingdom in 1963. The bars were originally made by Mackintosh's at their Halifax factory but in recent years are now made in a factory in Rowntree's Fawdon factory in Newcastle. Toffee Crisp displaced Texan and Cabana confectionery bars. This factory first opened in 1970 supported by George Philips.
Information
The idea for Toffee Crisp bars originated after an idea from John Henderson, the great-nephew of John Mackintosh – his wife Edith used to make Rice Crispie and chocolate cakes for their two children – he took some of these to the factory, and work began on developing a new product in the early 1960s. When the chocolate coated crispy bar was submitted to the Board they felt it needed something more, so after a lot of work from the experimental department, a soft toffee was added along the top, and Toffee Crisp was born. It is important to recognise that a lot of people in Mackintosh's Halifax were actually involved in the creation, development and subsequent success of Toffee Crisp.
The bars are sold in a bright orange wrapper with the words "Toffee Crisp" written with rounded lettering, bright yellow in colour with brown shadowing taking up most of the front. The texture of the bar is varied with the chocolate coating and the filling. A typical Toffee Crisp bar contains 12.2 g of fat, 8.0 g of which is saturated and 229 calories. Prices can range from 45p–65p.
The bar was moved to the Fawdon factory (where it was planned to be manufactured after its initial manufacture at the John Mackintosh, Halifax factory), because of the Castleford factory closure (due December 2012). The last toffee crisp to be made in Castleford was on Thursday 15 December 2012, and from that day the toffee crisp equipment was sent over to Fawdon factory where it has continued to be produced.
On one side of the packaging is a slogan of sorts, "Crispy Crunch, Chewy Munch!".
In March 2015, Nestlé shrank their Toffee Crisp bars down to 38g. The change in weight led to a reduction in the calorific content, from 229 calories to 200 calories. The company stated on Twitter the decision to reduce the size some of their confectionery, was on the recommendation of Governmental advice.[1]
In popular culture
The Toffee Crisp is best known for a series of British television advertisements in the 1980s/1990s, each ending with the strap line "Somebody, somewhere is having a Toffee Crisp".
The Toffee Crisp (shown as the Toffee Crispy, though it was the same product with the same labelling style and font) also appeared in a Red Dwarf episode entitled "Bodyswap". The Toffee Crispy was dispensed from a talking food dispenser machine, instead of the ship exploding due to a wiring fault.
Jim'll Paint It once featured a three legged Toffee Crisp, holding a mushroom and half a wasp.
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