Cybercandy – The Sweetest Thing

I love seeing how other country do things differently to the UK. The road signs, the TV stations, the Police sirens….One of the best things about travelling for me though is the food.

cybercandy

As well as sampling the local specialties (and wine), it’s great fun trying different chocolate bars, drinks and candy you can’t get back in the UK.

I suppose the same way someone from Japan might think a Mars Bar was pretty cool, I love the slightly crazy concepts and packaging they have when it comes to confectionery (and the different things they put in it too).

Cybercandy is a family run business that has been searching the world for the ultimate in exotic and weird snacks since 2000.

They do the leg work for you, so you can order a load of foreign snacks, sweets and chocolate without needing your passport. We spoke to Margret from Cybercandy about life inside a virtual sweetshop… We also have a cool competition to win a Wonka Gift Box (see below).

cybercandyWho came up with the idea for Cybercandy?
Allan is our Managing Director, he had a brainwave when looking for some American candy online back in the misty days of the early internet.

Approx how many different products do you sell?
Loads!! We have new lines all the time, plus seasonal stuff, sometimes we retire things for a bit then revisit them, or sometimes special editions pop up again in another part of the world altogether. We have thousands of lines but not all necessarily in stock at once.

What is the strangest product on the site?
The insect sweets are pretty strange (they have real insects in) but for me the strangest are probably the Swedish salty liquorice or the Mexican chilli sweets, because they are not designed as novelties, they are what kids and adults actually eat in those countries, and they are so foreign to the British palate.

I’m learning to love them though!..I’ve always quite liked the Idaho Spud, the only potato themed confectionery I’ve come across…

I found some Cadburys chocolate bars that I’ve never seen for sale in the UK, are they actually made by Cadburys?
Yes, most likely you were looking at Australian Cadbury or perhaps Canadian. Cadbury (now owned by Kraft) is a multinational with huge ranges of products in many countries.

It’s very popular in Australia where they produce a lot of innovative chocolate bars like a Dairy Milk Black Forest, or loads of different kinds of Freddos. One of the other Australian Cadbury big sellers is Cherry Ripe, which was a very old Australian brand bought by Cadbury. It’s coconut and cherries covered in dark chocolate, very delicious.

One of my personal favourites is Wunderbar from Canada which is a Cadbury bar with peanut butter.

wunderbar

What is your best selling product at the moment?
Twinkies, Mountain Dew and Lucky Charms are all fantastically popular, and strangely none are technically candy – we do cereals and sodas and of course Twinkies are a cake product. All fly off the shelves.

Any kind of unusual Kit Kat is always popular too, there’s a Cookies and Cream one from Australia (left) which is lovely and very sought after.

cookies and cream kit kat Are a lot of your customers ex-pats who now live in the UK?
Not really – there are some of course but a lot of customers are Brits who are after something a bit different or who have got the taste for some sweets when abroad. We Brits do love sweets and there are some really knowledgeable fans of international candy out there!

Which chocolate bar / snack has the coolest packaging?
Japanese products often have very crazy graphics, or hyperreal pictures and funny text like on the Kasugai gummies, with their “admiring feelings of a graceful lady” I also like a lot of the Finnish packaging which has very good retro graphics, and also up to the minute delivery such as a squeezy pouch of salty liquorice for refreshment on the go…

Do you have any plans to open more stores?
Yes, definitely, there are several locations in the planning stage and wherever the people cry out for release from dull candy, we will be there… Our mascot is the Candy Overlord, who is a box man, fierce in his mission to Fight Dull Candy.

What is the best chocolate bar ever made?
People do like the Snack bar, that’s an Australian Dairy Milk with different flavour in each of the segments of the bar. It comes in a huge 220g bar which is massive and delicious.

There is a lot of nostalgia for the candy of the past, but we can usually find a version of long gone favourites from elsewhere in the world.

** This competition is now closed **
This competition is now closed, for our latest competitions click HERE

To see all of their weird and wonderful confectionery, drinks and sweets visit www.cybercandy.co.uk They also have stores in Covent Garden, Islington, Brighton and Birmingham.

Flush the Fashion

Editor of Flush the Fashion and Flush Magazine. I love music, art, film, travel, food, tech and cars. Basically, everything this site is about.