It has
been a couple of weeks since my last blog post mainly because I've been busy
with an essay and learning a new citation format. And in my last Culture Shock
blog I talked about how the Americans did something better than the British and
now need to rectify that. With this blog I hope to kill two birds with one
stone.
One of
the more tragic things about leaving the U.K. at the age of three was that I
couldn't eat Cadbury's Chocolate, one of the best, if not the best, massed
produced chocolates in the world. Now that I'm back I spend between £0.70 to £2.00 every day on Milk Bars,
Twirls, Flakes, Crunchies, Wispas and a few other bars. And the simple fact is
that they are better in every single way to the stuff I've been eating in
America. To start there is the cost. A Twix Bar set me back $1.25 in the States
if I brought it from the vending machine or a CVS store. Here a similar sized
(and better tasting) Twirl Bar costs £0.70
($1.13). Sometimes the phrase you pay less for lower quality isn't true. And
that cost is including the 20% sales tax (Provided chocolate isn't under the
VAT exemption for food) so really it's $1.13 English chocolate vs. $1.37 D.C.
chocolate. That pays for itself in one working week for a chocoholic like
myself.
The only
complaint I really have about the chocolate itself involves the vending
machines, which keep the chocolate bars refrigerated to stop them melting. If
you eat chocolate then you know it tastes best when a little has melted onto
your fingers. So whenever I buy vending machine chocolate I have to put it
somewhere warm and wait. TORTURE! However, behind this agony lurks a reassuring
fact. The first is that chocolate actually melts at room temperature so
companies add a sort of wax so the chocolate keeps for longer. Clearly Hershey
adds a lot of the stuff to their chocolate, which sits on store shelves for
days on end. Cadbury must use some, but the chocolate sells faster here and
when it doesn’t; it gets refrigerated in a machine. Any other complaints I have
centre around me and how because I am no longer a child my heavy consumption of
chocolate will affect my waist line and probably increase the acne on my face.
But I blame my parents for that one (But they are the ones paying for my trip
here so I can eat chocolate so they're still great).
So in comparison to U.S. chocolate the U.K. is
better in both price and quality. A friend once said that Hershey is good for
when you want a cheap but bad thing like a McDonald's hamburger. But why would
I want a McDonald's hamburger if I could get a restaurant hamburger for less
than the McDonald's one? Americans just don’t make good chocolate. The only good
thing to come out of the American company Kraft buying Cadbury (A tragic moment
in history) will be if they successfully launch the actual stuff in America
(not the Hershey made stuff that sells for $2.37 plus tax in the states).
On that note an economics point (You knew this was
coming). I have observed that the British don't really mind who makes their
stuff or provides their services so long as they do it well. We don't mind
Indians making their cars and Germans making our trains because they are good
at it. However, we do mind Indians with thick accents providing help over the
phone because their accents can make them hard to understand and we certainly
don't like Americans making our chocolate because Americans are rubbish at it.
So, to my friends in the US I have this to say.
When I return to the US I will have in my possession several bags of English
chocolate. Get some before I give all the chocolate I don't eat first away.
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