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Maltesers are, of course, the favorites of many people. In the March chocolate portfolio Wrigley, the chocolate treaty of Malt-Chocolat centered on bee nests ranked the highest value at 16.8%, ahead of the galaxy (16.2%), M&M (8.2%) and celebrations (7.4%). Available worldwide (after notable launches in Australia in 1988 and in the United States in 2017-yes, really late), the Malters are particularly popular in Great Britain, where they were invented in 1936 and where 400 tonnes of them are still produced each week at the Mars Wrigley factory in Slough. Everyone has their own favorite ritual to eat them: our guest editor appreciates them in tea, on a spoon.
Malters have become a distinctly British cultural touch. Author Graham Greene referred them to her 1978 spy novel The human factor (“Better than Kitkats”, his protagonist, Maurice Castle, insists). Lady Judi Dench described them as “my favorite” before eating 100 Malteers in 2021 as part of a Charitable challenge in honor of Captain Sir Thomas Moore. The Rankin fashion photographer turned campaigns for chocolates in the 1990s (with the slogan “accentuate your cheekbones”) and an extremely successful advertising campaign in the early 2000s marked the first careers of actress Miranda Hart and actor Suranne Jones. In the culinary world, a myriad of recipes exist for cakes and cookies inspired by Malteer, Rocky Road Leith Road Bars and Mary Berry Malté Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Cake of Nigella Lawson with its “beautiful dilapidated crown”.
The malters were sold for the first time in 1937 in the United Kingdom, created by Forrest Mars SR, son of the founder of Mars, incorporated and presented as “energy balls”. Despite their mass attraction, the Malters have in fact the characteristics of a high -end chocolate. “A Malterian can only be manufactured by highly specialized machines,” explains pastry chef Philip Khoury. Although only a handful of Mars Wrigley people know the recipe, the process is understood as starting with a sweet underwater paste which is pumped through an extruder, shaped in pastilles and cooked in an empty oven. “The humidity brings the product of the interior and cooking to lock up this puff's formation,” explains Khoury. Once dry, it creates the interior in a crunchy honeycomb, which is coated with chocolate and then polished. “Compared to a Pierre Hermé signature as its nougatine chocolate crunch, the malters are simple but just as delicious and more unique in texture. They should be considered a gastronomic treat.”
Although early sales data is difficult to find, chocolate was obviously a success: after stopping production in 1939 due to the war effort, their return was presented as a national question. The 1930s were in a way a golden age for the confectionery: Terry's Chocolate Orange, Mars Bar and Kitkat were all launched in the same decade. And it was during this period that the link between chocolate and female desire was forged. Advertising for Rowntree Black Magic told women to give in to temptation. The Aero slogan spoke of “natural” the means that “should be obeyed”.
Maltesers' approach was slightly different. From the start, the target market was also women. But the emphasis was more healthy. Promotions as “non-fastigning”, they were sold as a slim assistant and presented as “the chocolates (that) models-girls AIM”. The polished outdoor outdoor in the mouth and not in the mouth (the Malters created the texture before the M&M and the Ménestrels deploy this as their slogan) played in its attraction as a treat for single women: “When you take one, they do not house you in any case,” explains the food historian Polly Russell. “It is a question of controlling and leaving no evidence of your consumption.”
In 2008, the link between malters and slimming was concluding in a conclusive manner when the assertions that a Malterer contains “less than 11 calories” was deemed deceived by the advertising of standards. The agency concluded that the Maltersters could not be described as “low energy”. At that time, however, the accent had changed. “The lightness of the product had become the lightness of humor,” explains Alice Kain, the curator of the Marques Museum. “In the 90s, you also saw young women with navel piercings or ears. More recent campaigns have linked to problems with maternity, menopause and disability. “Due to the way the Maltersters have positioned themselves, they can speak to their audience in a way that few other brands can.”
Another point of resistance was the coherent format: a box or a bag with a change in the 1950s of the original white packaging to its current daring red. “Maltersers was one of the first companies to use the packaging of high saturation colors to stand out,” explains Kain.
As for the food experience: “There is something in the explosion of a Malterer who only delivers”, explains Russell. “And this varnish,” explains Kain, “not only reproduce the brilliance you get the flower or plastic packaging on other chocolates, but offers consistency assurance; The promise you are about to eat will be perfect. ”
