Cadbury Star Bar

I plan to write the history of the Star Bar here. There are many versions going around so this will take time to verify all the stories. This is therefore very much a work in progress page. I’ll keep it public though so you can keep an eye on my time line of events and also keep me on track when the story I’m telling beomes more fantasy than reality.

In the mid-1960s Star Bar was invented by Linda Allison, and was promoted as the “nunchiest bar ever”. Star Bar was later rebranded as Nudge – I need to clarify this information.

It came into being in 1976 made at Cadbury Ireland.

It had an image crisis in 1989 when it was renamed Peanut Boost but thankfully the folk at Cadbury saw sense and changed the name back to Starbar in 1994.

In New Zealand they have Starbars but they’re called Moro bars. They are the 4th fave bar in that country so it’s good to hear that somewhere in the world the Starbar (in disguise) is doing so well.

This is a picture of the Moro Bar wrapper and you’ll see it mentions the renaming from Star Bar.

Cadbury Moro Bar

They also appear in Canda as the Cadbury Wunderbar but I have my reservations with this line of enquiry. The bar was developed and launched in Canada in 1976.  It is loved by Canadians for its delicious chewy combination of roasted peanuts, crunchy rice crisps and smooth caramel, all wrapped in Cadbury milk chocolate.  Wunderbar candy bar is manufactured at our Cadbury Gladstone chocolate factory, the only place where Wunderbar is made. So it sounds like a Star Bar but I need a detailed breakdown of ingredients to compare to the Star Bar to confirm.

The ingredients for the Star Bar are as follows:

Caramel (34%) (Glucose syrup, Hydrogenated vegetable oil, Sugar, Dried skimmed milk, Glycerol, Emulsifier (E471), Flavouring), Milk chocolate (Milk, Sugar, Cocoa mass, Cocoa butter, Vegetable fat, Emulsifier (E442), Flavourings), Peanuts (20%), Hydrogenated vegetable oil, Dried Whey, Crisp rice (Rice, Sugar, Wheat gluten, Malt extract, Dried whey, Salt), Sugar, Glucose Syrup, Emulsifier (Soya lecithin), Flavourings, Salt. Milk Chocolate: Milk Solids 14% minimum. Contains vegetable fats in addition to cocoa butter.

Compare these to the Cadbury Wunderbar:

SUGAR, PEANUTS, GLUCOSE-FRUCTOSE, GLUCOSE SYRUP, MODIFIED MILK INGREDIENTS, MODIFIED PALM OIL, MODIFIED VEGETABLE OIL, HYDROGENATED PALM KERNEL OIL, UNSWEETENED CHOCOLATE, CRISPED RICE (RICE, SUGAR, SALT, MALT FLAVOUR (WHEAT)), COCOA BUTTER, SALT, SOY LECITHIN, HYDROGENATED VEGETABLE OIL, MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, SODIUM BICARBONATE, CALCIUM CHLORIDE, CITRIC ACID, SORBITAN MONOSTEARATE, POLYSORBATE 60, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOURS. MAY CONTAIN WHEAT

I’m at a loss really, the two lists are not identical but some of the ingredietns might be known under different names.

6 Responses to “History”