Bounty bars exiled: choc horror or sweet relief?

From Mars bar maniacs to Twix addicts, people across the UK tuck into boxes of Celebrations every festive season.

But “Bounty hunters may have their work cut out this Christmas”, said the BBC, after manufacturer Mars Wrigley announced that “No Bounty” Celebrations tubs will be trialled this year.

Although the coconut-filled chocolates are marketed as a “slice of paradise”, said The Guardian’s consumer affairs correspondent Zoe Woods, “it seems one person’s heaven really is another’s hell”. The Celebrations shake-up comes after a Mars survey of 2,000 people found that nearly 40% backed ditching the “divisive sweet”. 

‘Marmite of chocolate bars’ 

A nationwide debate is raging over what Sky News described as the “choc horror” decision to axe Bountys from some selection boxes. The Daily Mail reported that the country was split “over one single question: are Bountys really that bad?” 

Bountys have “long been the Marmite of chocolate bars”, said The Times’s Andrew Ellson. The Mars survey found that 18% would be irritated to find just Bounty bars left in the tub, while 58% believed that a family row would erupt.

All the same, warned Ellson, axing Bountys “could trigger a mutiny” by the 18% of respondents who said it was their favourite of the eight chocolates in the Celebrations line-up. 

The response from some “outraged” Twitter users also proved “that there is love for the Bounty after all”, said the Mail. One user asked, “how can you not like coconut”, while historian and podcast host Greg Jenner joked that “this country has gone to the dogs”.  

Food writer Emma Hughes said that she had “an instinctive sympathy with the coconut-filled underdog”. In an article for The Guardian, Hughes described being “virtually alone among my friends in my Bounty trutherism”, but suggested that “If Mars is going to sideline anything in the Celebrations tub, it should be the pappy and indistinct Milky Way”.

‘Valuable life lesson’ 

Mars trialled a Bounty Return Scheme last Christmas that allowed customers to swap their unwanted chocolates for Maltesers. “Now, off the back of public demand, we’re trialling taking them out of the tub altogether,” said Celebrations senior brand manager Emily Owen.

Article source: https://www.theweek.co.uk/arts-life/food-drink/958408/bounty-bars-exiled-celebrations-tubs