The trend today is to take classic candy bars and make variants with different ingredients or flavours. At this point Kit Kat is probably the most well known treat to achieve great success with this concept, particularly in Japan. Other classic candy bars are also doing this, some more successfully than others. The challenge when making a variant version of a classic treat is to make it different enough from the original, while keeping the treat recognizable as the original. I argue that I don’t think this bar has managed that at all.

In some cases variant bars aren’t different enough, and just taste or feel like the original bar only slightly off. In this case however they’ve changed this Snickers so much from the original bar that it doesn’t feel and certainly doesn’t taste like a Snickers at all. I feel like Snickers might be one of the hardest bars in the world to make a variant version since the flavour and texture combination are what makes a Snickers a Snickers bar. That blend of peanut, caramel, nougat and chocolate are really the trademarks of a Snickers bar, and once you start messing with it that bar isn’t really a Snickers anymore. That’s the main problem I have with this bar, it’s not a Snickers bar anymore.

There are also a few other issues I have with this bar. I found this bar to be very dry, as if some of the sweet and soft bits of the classic Snickers had been taken out. It felt more like an energy bar than a Snickers bar. I also found it to be a little bit bitter. Some might actually like the bitter flavour, but since I was expecting something closer to a Snickers it just didn’t work for me. The combination of dark chocolate and almonds along with the fact (according to the package) it contained 50% less sugar made this bar a little too bitter for my liking.

I wouldn’t call this a horrible bar. If there is in fact less sugar, and if you like your chocolate treats a little bitter, than you might really like this bar. I also wouldn’t call this bar a Snickers though, and that’s too bad because I really like Snickers bars.