Friday, 12 July 2013

Chocolate Crisp Weetabix Minis: Proof that Darwinism is Applicable to Breakfast Cereals

I do not consider breakfast cereals to be a simple foodstuff.  Think about the time you spend on each aisle of the supermarket.  Fruit and veg takes no time at all; meat (for those that eat it) is more often than not a snatch and grab for the cheapest, and usually most oppressed, slice of animal flesh; dairy is a no brainer and booze is generally straightforward.  These are 4 of the 5 key sections of my weekly groceries, but their sum is dwarfed by the fifth corner of the pentagon: breakfast cereals.  We’d be lying if we said we had never spent entire Saturday afternoons in the “Cereals” section of Tesco, salivating, sweating, crying and nervously vomiting.  So much choice, so many possibilities and combinations, but there’s only so much room in the kitchen cupboards.  We can’t just eat cereal (unless we’re in heaven).  Even if the bible states thus, and I’m pretty sure it does, we can’t bank on heaven having unlimited supplies of cereal any more than we can be certain of its existence.  You’ve got to have faith, I suppose. 

I remember last time I was buying I blacked out for about five minutes, and soiled myself (piss and shit), trying to decide what type of Dorset Cereal to utilise as a base for the Kellogg’s Crunch Nut I had already committed to.  Always choose your bowl base first, people (mueslis, granolas, shredded wheat, etc). 

The fervent undertaking of evolving their products is what causes the big cereal companies to lead people like myself, and probably a lot of you, to an early grave via stress induced illnesses and/or strokes.  For all the times the have missed the board entirely (Orange Chocolate Shreddies?  Strawberry Grahams?) occasionally they will hit the bullseye – or triple twenty if this is a darts metaphor; I think I was going for archery or target shooting.  From evolving something as simple as Weetabix, the identically named company have found something that this writer wholly believes in.  They have won the steeple chase(?), or battled for a point at Bayern Munich.  What? 

Sarcastically: Who’d have thought making your product smaller and loading it with chocolate chips would improve it so extraordinarily?

Taste:

CC Weetabix Minis taste great big love thank you.  The chocolate chips have that cheap, powdery feel about them, but I’m no chocolate connoisseur and I like that taste in my breakfast cereal.  It’s not like Coco Monkey covers his Pops in gourmet Belgian chocolate FFS. 

8/10

Milk Taste: 

You don’t get a powerful taste seeping into the milk, but a robust milkiness works perfectly with the cereal.  This is one of these cereals which benefits from fresh milk.  Get your milk right when eating these.  In fact, always buy fresh milk when buying CC Weetabix Minis.    

8/10

Texture:

If CC Weetabix Minis were Ryan Giggs, texture would be their ability as a footballer and/or sleeping with their brother’s wife and still being adored nationwide.  I feel this is the strongest part of this cereal.  They don’t go soggy within a minute like their full sized ancestors, placing them at a respectable 4 on the DCSI.  I believe they are subject to the Cereal Killer Coating Hypothesis also, there is some sort of sugary layer going on there, but it is subtle.

10/10

Packaging:

The dark brown allows them to be quickly identified as the chocolate chip variety (fruit and nut is sort of berry purple, strawberry is red).  I like how the different carieties are the same, other than the colour indicator.  The archetypal milk splashing over a bowl image is boring, but it gets me every time.

Chocolate Crisp Weetabix Minis


7/10

Relevence of Mascot: N/A – points assigned to packaging

Potential: 

My favourite thing about CC Weetabix Minis is that you can eat them dry as though a real life biscuit, not merely a “bix”.  I regularly enjoy mine with an after work coffee.  They do get dry after a while, but satisfyingly blunten the edge of your post work hunger. 

7/10

Overall: 

A respectable score for one of my favourite lab experiment cereals.  This summer, if you Weetabix, Weetabix Mini (with chocolate chips).


8/10