Quality Street make a wide variety of different chocolates and toffees. Targeted at everyday chocolate fans, Quality Street isn’t a fancy, gourmet brand. Instead, they have perfected the art of making affordable, popular (and absolutely delicious) sweet treats for kids and adults alike.
Whether you require a box of chocolates to say thankyou or a hoard of sweets for a children’s party, Quality Street is the brand to go for. But the company offer plenty of different products, so choosing the right set isn’t always easy. This hotukdeals buyer’s guide tells you everything you need to know about what they do, and who they are, helping you to find the best possible confectionery prices.
The story of Quality Street began in the 1890s, when a Yorkshire confectioner called John Mackintosh set up a shop in Halifax. Mackintosh and his wife had found a revolutionary new recipe for chocolate toffees involving the infusion of liquid caramel – creating sweets with a soft centre (as opposed to the chewy toffees that had been the norm until then).
The firm prospered and passed to Mackintosh’s son Harold. In 1936, he had a brainwave: seeing the popularity of his firm’s sweets and the growing demand for chocolate sets, he created Quality Street – sets of Mackintosh chocolates with a variety of flavours. If you’re wondering, he took the name from a J.M. Barrie play, which was a hit at the time.
For the first time, working class Brits could buy sets of chocolates that were individually wrapped in colourful foil, creating a special experience every time the box was opened. Unsurprisingly, the idea caught on, and Quality Street as a brand hasn’t looked back since.
In 1988, the company was purchased by multinational confectionery manufacturer Nestlé, but the brand has remained remarkably faithful to its origins. Today, the 12 recipes included in a Nestlé Quality Street set are very similar to the original flavours (with some additions and changes along the way), and the experience of enjoying Quality Street is as enjoyable as ever.
Quality Street sell a large number of different confectionery products, including:
265g Cardboard Packets – A small gift selection featuring the 12 core varieties that would be ideally sized for kids to enjoy.
600g Jars – Plastic sweet jars with a screw top that are full of classic Quality Street sweets.
900g Metal Tins – Large chocolate assortments that could last for months on end. Features all of the company’s varieties as well as cards explaining which colour corresponds to the flavours on offer.
1,750g Metal Tins – The largest Quality Street product on offer, these “gifting tins” will feature enough confectionery for any children’s party and be a fitting gift for friends and family.
Loose Chocolates – Some retailers also offer the chance to buy loose Quality Street chocolates in whatever quantity you need, which is a great way to stock up for Halloween or school events if you are a teacher.
Those are the main quantities on offer from Quality Street, but what about the chocolates themselves? Nowadays, you’ll find 12 different flavours and styles in a standard Quality Street collection, including:
Toffee Pennys – Shaped like a penny, these classic toffees were a big favourite of James Mackintosh and were the first sweets that Quality Street produced.
Toffee Fingers – Chocolate coated toffee fingers measuring an inch and a half long, these sweets are satisfying to chew on, offering a wonderful combination of chocolate and gooey toffee.
Caramel Swirls – Another classic, caramel swirls are simple but satisfying, consisting of a chocolate coating and a soft caramel core.
Milk Choc Block – As the name suggests, these cuboid sweets in a light green wrapper consist of a hunk of pure milk chocolate. Simple, but delicious.
Vanilla Fudge – Moving up the complexity scale, Quality Street’s vanilla fudge sweets come in an instantly recognisable pink wrapper and consist of a vanilla fudge core with a chocolate shell.
Coconut Éclair – With a blue wrapper this time, the popular coconut éclair combines milk chocolate with a sweet coconut filling, somewhat like a Bounty bar.
Orange Chocolate Crunch – Adding some fruity essence, the orange chocolate crunch echoes Terry’s Chocolate Orange, featuring a solid block of chocolate infused with orange flavouring.
Strawberry Delight – As the name implies, these fruity chocolates are a delight, consisting of a chocolate shell filled with strawberry cream.
Orange Cream – A burst of orange flavour erupts from inside the dark chocolate shell of these ever-popular sweets.
Honeycomb Crunch - Also available in separate bars, the new Honeycomb Crunch replaced Toffee Deluxe in the brown wrapper (to the dismay of some fans) in 2016. But it's proving a hit with its sweet honeycomb and chocolate centre.
The Green Triangle – Probably Quality Street’s most popular chocolate, these iconic treats include a triangular chocolate coating and a hazelnut praline core.
The Purple One – Another nutty delight, the Purple One includes a hazelnut encased in gooey caramel inside a chocolate shell.
Every Quality Street collection should feature at least one of each kind. If you can’t tell them apart, don’t worry. Each product should also feature a legend detailing the appearance and ingredients of each sweet, if you have a strong aversion to strawberry cream, it shouldn’t be hard to avoid the Strawberry Delights in your pack.
Along with their standard chocolates, Quality Street also sell a number of chocolate bars, including their popular Honeycomb Crunch bars, which features solid chocolate infused with crunchy honeycomb. You can also buy boxes with smaller honeycomb fingers.
Quality Street base their whole corporate existence around gift-giving. After all, the vast majority of chocolate tubs bought and sold in the UK are purchased as a gift or reward. So you can be sure that any Quality Street tins or jars you buy will be gratefully received.
However, if you are looking for special Quality Street gift sets, the best option to go for is the 1,275g tin. With it’s silver seal and attractive design, it’s a great present for grandparents, partners, parents and anyone who has helped you out.
As you would expect from mass produced confectionery products, Quality Street chocolates aren’t ideal for slimmers, but how do they rate alongside other sweet delights?
According to Nestle, three Quality Street chocolates add up to around 130 calories, so each single chocolate will be about 40-50 calories. Given that the daily recommended intake of an adult woman is 2,000 calories, that doesn’t seem to bad. Then again, it’s easy to start munching chocolates, and before too long, your calorie intake has gone through the roof.
But how do Quality Street compare with other chocolate brands? Not too badly actually. Quality Street chocolates contain around 455 calories per 100g, which is more or less the same as Mars bars, but much less than Cadbury’s Dairy Milk (which weighs in at 530 calories). So if you are worried about your waistline and absolutely must dive into a tin of sweets, Quality Street may not be the worst option around – but it’s definitely not a health food. It’s a sweet treat.
While Quality Street’s products aren’t the most calorific around and are certainly tasty, how do they rate in environmental terms? There have been concerns raised around the environmental cost of palm oil used by major confectioners as well as the working conditions in cacao-growing areas, but are Quality Street involved in these scandals?
Well, parent brand Nestle seem to be trying to deal with both problems but still have a way to go. For instance, they source around 23% of their cacao from fair trade producers and only 16% of its palm oil was certified as sustainably produced in 2014. Palm oil is a major driver of deforestation in countries like Indonesia, so this may be a concern for some customers.
Then again, Quality Street have worked hard to make their products easier to recycle. All of their foil wrappers, tins and buckets should be recycled, wherever you live in the UK, and the coloured wrappers around their sweets are also biodegradeable, so you could theoretically add them to your compost heap.
The tins are also a great container for household items, with their attractive, sturdy design. So there are arguments to be made either way if sustainability is one of your major purchasing motivations.
It’s worth noting that Quality Street is far from the only brand on the block. If you need to buy a chocolate box for someone special, Quality Street are dependable and you know what you’ll be getting, but they might not be the best option. If you want to look beyond their strawberry delights and orange chocolate crunches, here are some alternatives to purchase via hotukdeals:
Roses – Manufactured by Cadburys, Roses appeared in 1938 in response to the popularity of brands like Quality Street. Boasting a similar quality of sweet and selection of flavours, Roses are just as appealing and have a similar price level to Quality Street. So why not compare their prices at hotukdeals and just go for the best value for money deal you find?
Ferrero Rocher – Manufactured by the Italian confectioner Ferrero, Ferrero Rocher only have one recipe which involves a whole hazelnut that is surrounded by hazelnut chocolate, then encased within a thin wafer shell that is studded with hazelnut pieces and covered in chocolate (milk, white or dark). Extremely calorific but extremely satisfying, Rocher represents a classic balance between upmarket taste and affordability.
Lindt – The Swiss chocolatier Lindt makes beautiful Neapolitans (solid chocolate chunks), eggs and chocolate figures that are probably a cut above Quality Street and Roses. Then again, you get less for your money, although what you do get is exceptional.
Milk Tray – Manufactured by Cadbury’s, Milk Tray may be most famous for their humorous advertising in the 1980s which associated them light-heartedly with romantic assignations. These days, they are a reliable alternative to Quality Street, featuring a collection of chocolate coated biscuits.
Thorntons – Another classic British chocolate maker, Thorntons specialise in gift boxes featuring favourites like Turkish delight, milk chocolate brazils, fruit fondant and coffee creams. Even better, you can personalise your gift boxes to add the name of the recipient and a message, a nice touch if you are buying them as a present.
Celebrations – Mars’ equivalent of Roses and Quality Street, Celebrations features mini versions of the brand’s bars, including Mars bars, Bounty, Snickers, Twix, Milky Way, Maltesers and Galaxy bars. With so many well-known products included, Celebrations are always a safe option when you are buying for people you don’t know that well or for kids’ parties.
When you’ve made up your mind whether to opt for a mammoth tin of Quality Street or a smaller packet, how can you get the cheapest possible Quality Street prices? Well, heading down to your nearest Tesco probably won’t be the best option.
At the hotukdeals Quality Street listings you’ll find all of the company’s tins, jars and packets on offer as well as bargains for loose Quality Street sweets. Instead of heading to bricks and mortar shops, you can instantly see Quality Street deals from retailers like Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Poundstretcher, Poundland, Amazon and the Co-Op. You might be surprised by how much retailers reduce confectionery prices.
Great deals can be found at any time of year, but there are some good times to seek out bigger reductions. As Valentine’s Day approaches, expect major savings, and ditto for Halloween and Christmas, Mother's Day and Father's Day.
The key thing is to avoid paying the recommended retail price for products like Quality Street. With deals all around us, there's no need to do so. Just visit hotukdeals and you can save money whenever you have to make a confectionery purchase.
Quality Street is a national treasure. Every week, hundreds of thousands of people buy their confectionery tins and brighten the lives of the people they give them to. Whether you need a chocolate box for a birthday celebration or you just have a sweet tooth, you’ll always find the biggest Quality Street reductions at hotukdeals.
