THE EMPIRE
The wonderful people over at Arnotts sent me quite the package yesterday,
There has been a ” new and improved” release across all the flavours and a couple new ones added…
First thing I did ( as i didn’t know this had even happened till the package turned up) was to rip into some cheese and bacon and read the feedback on their facebook page.. well .. people seemed to be far from impressed, sighting words like “foul” and “gross”
but you know me, gota see for myself and let you know what I think
first up was Cheese and Bacon as they were the first I grabbed blindly out of the bag..
Cheese and Bacon
the texture seemed a little less salty which made me think the the flavour would be a bit on the weak side, I honestly couldnt tell the difference taste wise from the old recipie but that said I’ve not had that flavour for a while.
you notice little specs of pink ” bacon ” bits which I cant feel or taste any different but yeah the flavour tastes as I remember and there is plenty of it so no complaints.. as you were
Pizza
No I don’t need to tell you how I feel about pizza, and pizza shapes are no different so this was something they best not stuff up…
well.. I’m not impressed either.. they taste good, very strong taste of tomato but this new ” baked both sides for more flavour” which might well be true isn’t awesome, the thing I like about pizza shapes is the texture and that gathering of the red bits at the bottom when you’re done… there’s no real cheese flavour I can pick out either. I prefer the old ones
Barbecue
This is the one I saw getting the most hate from users online, also its the flavour I was least interested in from past experience due to being the most bland in terms of flavour over the range.. Kinda feeling they have over done their tomato flavour on this one too.. Its certainly not a smokey bbq like you would expect from something like pringles, its similar to the old flavour and there is certainly more flavour there it just seems overwhelmgingly tomato but not as bad as the pizza which seemed to be 100% tomato.. That being said I feel improvements have been made but at a cost..
Cheddar
Another that I hope they don’t stuff up.. I’ve always like the cheddar flavour, that and pizza were my favourites I guess due to the cheesy flavour so lets see..
Again no more ” flavour you can see” but damn that’s a good cheesy taste, heaps of flavour why didnt they mix this into the pizza?? these are definately good.. I dont know if improvement is the right word cause the old ones were awesome, these are different but awesome and yeah I’l get these again
Roast Chicken
Not sure if these are new or replacing one of the chicken flavours which wouldn’t bother me as I wasn’t a huge fan of either of the old ones. Certainly a very chickeny flavour and not that articficial flavour i think it was ripples did when they changed their chicken flavour chips, that ripped my undies.. These are good, not sure how much roast flavour there is.. almost a bit salty in a good way but yeah over all not bad.. wait.. hold up.. I just got the best after taste, if you’re really old like me you might remember KFC did a popcorn chicken, not what they do now.. this was an old old style came in a burgerbox.. this reminds me of that… which is awesome.. ahh nostalgia!
Finally
Nacho Cheese
Wait, what the hell? Tomato? and a slight hint of cheese? these are more pizza than the pizza flavour?? I mean they are good but these are more like a Nacho’s flavour rather than nacho cheese… I’m starting to think whoever made these flavours is incapable of tasting tomato and that’s why its so overwhelming in all the flavours it features in?? I like tomato as much as the next person but this flavour in particular is almost misleading…
But that’s why you guys have me! to product test all the new stuff and get fat so you don’t have to waste your time on the wrong choices!
to wrap up I think the people that are sooking on social media might be going over board a bit .. I totally understand the ” if it aint broke, don’t fix it” I would expect Arnott’s are looking forward at things like health approvals on foods so they can get the special tick or gold star which isn’t to be scoffed at we could all do with thinking about that sorta thing more often.. I would expect that is why they have changed tactic and had a go and making them better too..
My top pick would be the Cheddar that certianly is better than it was, biggest let down was pizza.. that was way better before..
Happy nomming!!
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