A QUALITY Street employee has shared how the company decides which sweets to axe from the tubs.
The staff member, who works for Nestle, revealed some insider secrets about her role, including how employees pick what goes in the iconic purple tins.
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The colourful sweets are a festive staple of the nation and have been going strong for over 80 years.
And the tins and tubs are made up of 11 different sweets which are all individually wrapped.
Quality Street’s current mix features the four “core” sweets, which are the Purple One, the Green Triangle, the Caramel Swirl and Toffee Finger, but there’s also an Orange Crunch, Strawberry Delight, Orange Creme, Fudge, Milk Chocolate Block, Toffee Penny and Coconut Eclair.
Over the years certain sweets have come and gone from the tubs, sparking outrage from many fans of the brand.
Emily Grimbley has been working on the Quality Street brand team at Nestlé in York since 2020 and is currently a brand manager.
Emily said that deciding what goes into the Quality Street mix all comes down to one simple thing – you and me, the consumers, and what we make clear to Nestlé that we want.
She told the Mirror: “So we do a lot of research and speak to a lot of consumers, but everyone’s got different favourites and a different opinion, so we’re trying to please everyone.
“We categorise it into toffees, creams and chocolate sweets and try and do a fair mix of them so that there’s something for everyone in there.
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When it comes to deciding which sweets get taken out of the box, the company tries to avoid axing products as much as possible as it causes “outrage”.
Emily added: “People love Quality Street and they don’t like us to mess with it too much so we know that all of the sweets in there are really loved by our consumers and they’re really passionate about them, so I don’t feel like there’s too much need to mix it up.
“We don’t axe sweets from the tubs very often because it causes outrage, but when we do, it all comes down to consumer research, speaking to customers and then trying to see whether we can optimise the mix to give people a better experience.
“So one of the big ones we took out was the Toffee Deluxe, as we know that consumers really like chocolate sweets, so then we only had two toffee ones in the tub and more chocolate.
“It’s just trying to get that balance right.”
The Toffee Deluxe was first axed in 2016 but was resurrected after people petitioned to bring it back before getting removed again in 2019.
Shoppers at John Lewis can choose exactly which sweets they want via their Pick & Mix stalls where shoppers can personalise their own tubs.
But it’s not so easy to whip up a new Quality Street sweet, with Emily sharing how the team works on new flavours for between three and five years before they hit the shops.
And any potential new delicacy would have to go through numerous rounds of research and testing before they are released.
Emily added: “We’ve done limited edition sweets in the past. We work a few years ahead so if we’re going to introduce a new flavour, it will be planned three to five years in advance.
“We have John Lewis [where] people can personalise their sweet mix and that’s where we introduce new sweets for customers to try, while we keep the favourites elsewhere.”
In October, Nestle announced Quality Street will axe its iconic brightly-coloured wrappers over 86 years since their release.
In a bid to become more environmentally-friendly, the treats are now being wrapped in a duller form of waxed paper, which is recyclable.
Only the two foil-covered sweets – the green triangle and orange crunch – will remain in their original packaging.
The new wrappers will be phased in until Christmas – and you may get a mix of old and new wrappers for now.
