| From 1982 to 1985 the Jacobs's Orange Club was with out a doubt my favorite biscuit.
Even 20 years ago the Club was a well established brand, with its adverts featuring various cohorts of people persuing different recreational pastimes singing 'If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit join our club'. It was a slick and well thought through approach, and in some ways mirrored the popular culture of the time. The look and presentation of the biscuit were as important as its content, whilst the catchy tunes in the advert spoke to us directly about chocolate and its quantity in relation to its biscuit innerds. Two crisp rectangles of biscuit, a layer of orange cream between and all covered in a layer of chocolate so thick that in certain strategic places it could be bitten off in chunks. Looking like a small chocolate ingot of gold the club biscuit exuded confidence and class. Finally the whole thing was wrapped in grease proof paper with a foil outer layer and slipped in a paper tube one end of which bore the particular species of club biscuits essence be it Orange Mint or Fruit.
How times have changed. Jacob's were absorbed into Danone, a French food giant, and for reasons unknown, the Club biscuit was reduced to a mere shadow of its former self, in a fashion somewhat similar to the turning of King Posidon in the Little Mermaid into a small pale sea worm thing. The once proud boast about chocolate, that came so easily to a nation's lips, was no longer to be heard. The two biscuits were reduced to one, the biscuit became thin and insubstantial, the orange cream squatting on top of it, the chocolate of course dwindled, the gloarious packaging, which lent itself to not one but two small origami dogs, became a cellophane sachet. I was personally too distraught to bring my self to even speak the name Club biscuit for many years.
However as we reported earlier this year Jacob's have relented slightly and moved back once more to the two wrapper system. Taking this as sign of reconciliation and compromise NiceCupOfTeaAndASit down will once again speak the name of 'Club Biscuit', in the hope that we can set an example for others in thse dark times. Once again the two small origami dogs are abroad in the land. Your feedback 13 messages |