MUNCH TIME
Shoppers are loving supermarket munch mixes – I tried out own-brand versions to find the best one to buy
Scroll down to see how you can save money on your food shop
A BIG tin of Munch Mix is a must-have for the festive snacking season.
This delicious pick-a-mix selection of salty-and-sweet treats, with milk, white and dark chocolates, tangy pretzels, candy and nuts makes the ultimate Christmas crowd-pleaser.
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M&S was the first to hit the shelves with its Very Merry Munch - a box packed with chocolate, pretzels and popcorn, first introduced back in 2021.
It was a viral hit from day one.
The first time it featured on the posh supermarket’s Instagram account, it racked up over 10,000 likes in less than 24 hours.
But this year Morrisons, Asda and Aldi have all added their own delicious versions - so we’ve taste-tested them all to see which is best.
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Whilst out shopping for the best munch mixes, we also spotted a money-saving hack.
You might expect budget supermarket Aldi’s treat tin to be much cheaper than luxury brand M&S’s - but if you can do without the Santa Clause-decorated box, there’s not a huge price difference between the two.
You can nab a 460g refill bag of Marks and Spark’s Very Merry Munch for £6.50.
This contains the same amount of candy as the £10 Santa-decorated tin - 460 grams of treats.
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But M&S’s Very Merry Munch refill bag works out at £1.41 per 100g - cheaper than Aldi’s smaller, 300g for £4.99 portion of snacks, which is £1.66 per 100g.
You can also pick up a 180g bag of Reindeer Munch from Aldi, at £1.99, or £1.10 per 100g - or Morrisons’ £2 for 200g Salted Caramel Munch Mix, which works out cheapest of all.
And you can easily tip either of the refill bags into a pretty bowl for Christmas guests to dip into - or re-use last year’s tin if you have it.
But what about the taste?
M&S’s Very Merry Munch
- £10 for 460g tin, or £6.50 for 460g bag
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Open the lid and it’s immediately clear that this is a really great selection of snacks, packed with the largest number of different treats of all munch mixes available.
M&S has put in thick, chunky clusters of milk and white chocolate-covered popcorn, super-salty plain pretzels, milk chocolate peanuts and dark chocolate pretzels which really make a mouth party in contrast with the chocolate’s sweetness.
Then there’s a generous sprinkling of Christmassy colour thanks to the jumbo, caramel-doused almonds, and red Smartie-like chocolates and green chocolate covered peanuts.
There’s something for everyone - my kids were rushing for the crisp chocolate shells, whilst adults loved handfuls of dark chocolate-covered pretzels and peanuts.
Marks & Sparks’ tin is the only one to include dark chocolate, and there’s a generous amount in there.
Inside the £10 tin, the snacks are all wrapped in a single plastic bag for freshness, but on opening it, it really fills the whole tin up and looks lovely and colourful - perfect for festive guests’ snacking needs.
The only improvement would be a slight tweak to the overall mix - there was a lot of plain pretzels compared to the number of popcorn clusters. But we loved it so much that we’re off to pick up some refill packs.
- 5/5
Aldi’s Dairyfine Reindeer Munch Mix
- £4.99 for 300g tin or £1.99 for 180g bag
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Aldi’s Dairyfine Reindeer Munch Mix tin is exactly the same size as M&S’s version, and looks very similar with its white and red colour scheme, but the contents are MUCH lighter.
It’s almost half the weight of snacks inside, and when you open it up, there’s a lot less variety.
This tin is almost all plain pretzels, peanuts (30% of the box) and toffee-coated popcorn.
Although the stated contents also include milk chocolate malt balls, I only found 16 of these in the entire tin.
They did add a dash of Christmassy colour when they popped up - they’re coloured metallic red - but mostly it’s a very brown mix.
My kids also noticed that some of the popcorn in this mix tasted like pretzels - the lack of chocolate coating makes the pretzel flavours mingle more than in M&S’s mix.
The tin itself looked great when set out for guests, but the contents were a bit disappointing.
You could make this Munch Mix yourself for less than a fiver with a pack of popcorn, pretzels, peanuts and chocolate, whereas the M&S one had more varied and luxury ingredients that would cost more to put together.
We still gobbled up the Reindeer Munch Mix in one happy Fred Clause film night - but it wasn’t our absolute favourite.
- 3/5
Salted Caramel Munch Mix
- £2 for 200g bag from Morrisons
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This is a tasty selection pack filled with salted toffee popcorn, caramelised peanuts, pretzels, two types of milk chocolate buttons and red malt balls.
It’s a more varied medley than Aldi’s selection tin, with Morrisons putting in an almost equal amount of chocolate, nuts and popcorn plus a handful of pretzels.
I did notice more of the pretzels and buttons were broken into bits in this pack compared to the more-protected tins from Aldi and M&S.
The chocolates here also tasted very peanutty as the bag itself is well-stuffed - that is definitely the dominant taste, so nut-haters can’t avoid it.
Price wise, this pack worked out cheapest overall at £1 per 100g - but it certainly didn’t appear low value thanks to its generous range of snacks.
Coming without a tin, it was tipped into a nice bowl for guests to enjoy.
Noticeably, the popcorn in Morrison’s pack was the tasteiest of all the supermarkets’ packs- super crisp and salty, an excellent contrast to the sweetness of the blonde and milk chocolate buttons.
There weren’t a huge number of red malted balls in this pack either, but the addition of lots of chocolate buttons meant the mix overall made a varied snack pack that the whole family enjoyed.
- 4/5
Merry Munch Mix
- £2.50 for 200g bag from Asda
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Asda’s bag of festive snacks makes for one of the most colourful arrays thanks to the generous number of green and red chocolate beans inside.
Also in the pack were honey-roasted peanuts, milk chocolate buttons, and salted caramel toffee popcorn, although as with the Aldi pack, large salted pretzels were dominant.
Alongside the popcorn, this bag of snacks made for a great salty-sweet flavour party.
The stand-out flavour was again peanuts, thanks to the plentiful honey-roasted ones swimming around in the pack - in fact, they’re the top ingredient in Asda’s array.
That was the case in all the munch mixes except for M&S’s, where the major ingredient is sugar.
My kids loved this mix thanks to the many colourful Smartie-like sweets and the colourful red Christmas tree-covered bag, although the adults did say there weren’t as many flavours as M&S’s pack.
Still, this Merry Munch Mix will go down a treat at Christmas.
- 3/5
Our verdict
Overall, I like to save up for my favourite treats at Christmas, so I’ll be splashing out on M&S’s Very Merry Munch for my top festive snacking.
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Sometimes the original really is the best - it has a large variety of sweet and salty snacks that all the family enjoyed.
I’ll definitely be going for its cheaper refill pack though - no need to spend £3.50 extra just for the tin when the contents look so good on their own.
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