Lion Bar Cereal - The Lion Preserves its Pride

The Lion Bar is a chocolate bar that I’m sure you are all familiar with.  A medley of wafer, caramel and biscuit, with the gaps filled in by chocolate.  It was previously a product of Rowntrees, and used to be good, until Nestlé bought it and made it shitty and cheap tasting.  I’m not a standard bearer of the Rowntrees Army or anything, I actually like Nestlé products (although I’m sure they’re evil because they give poor people AIDS, or don’t pay their taxes, or something), I just remember a time when the Lion Bar was a powerhouse in the UK confectionary market.  The drop in the chocolate bar’s reputation came about after Nestlé bought it over.  That is all I am saying. 

No wonder it has taken me this long to finally pick up a box of Lion Bar Cereal then.  A once potent nemesis of candy bar stalwarts such as the Aero or the Double Decker – although it was never up there in popularity with your Snickers and Mars bars – trying to get its name and label back out there through the breakfast cereal market.  I’d like to say this has happened before, but I honestly cannot think of any other sweeties that have become breakfast cereals.  Can anyone help a cereal-brother out?  I digress.  So.  This perhaps seemed a bit desperate to me.  Moreover, because almost every type of breakfast cereal that works has already entered the market and habitually these new, wacky concepts are thoroughly shit (strawberry grahams, anyone?).  Tony the Tiger said, in his key-note speech at last year’s cereal AGM: “When desperation mantles a falling brand, they feel the need to innovate and elaborate; always looking forward, blinkered to what they already have and short-sighted to what lays in their future.  Indeed, the single greatest commodity known to man is the ability to stay calm and patient.  Why would one move forward into the dark crypts of uncertainty, when they already reside in paradise?  Of course, this is Man’s greatest weakness: the need to develop and grow no matter how big you have become.  This is more popularly known as greed.  This too is why Frosties is as successful a brand as it is: I am a tiger and will not be affixed by the greed that befalls mankind.”  Somewhat cryptic, I know, but I once felt the Lion Bar Lion could take heed of his feline contemporary’s words.  It is why, whenever people see Lion Bar cereal on the shelves, they ask themselves: “Why, Nestlé?  Why?”    As it turns out, I am glad I took a chance on them.

I forgot to set up a link in the preamble to include a picture, so here is a picture of the box.  A picture that inconventiantly reveals that it is actually called Lion Cereals and not Lion Bar Cereal, highlighting my laziness in that I could not be arsed going back and changing the name in my article, but conversely showing off my impressive ability to avoid mistakes when writing as I proof read nothing.  PROFESSIONALISM.

Taste

"Multigrain" (as in, wedon'treallyknowwhatgrain) bites; one part chocolate flavoured, one part caramel flavoured.  Its the caramel part that distinguish this cereal.  The two flavours compliment each other very well.  They don't recreate the taste of a Lion Bar, but I don't think they really aim to.  A finely concocted je ne sais pas.  Very sweet (which is good in a breakfast cereal in my eyes). 

8.5/10


Milk Flavour

This segment is becoming somewhat one dimensional.  I tend to favour cereals that yield a chocolatey milk, and indeed chocolate cereals in general, but this has a strong caramel note to it that adds something to the chocolatey loveliness.  

8/10

Texture

They score 4 on the DCSI, as a cereal of this nature should.  A fine crunchiness throughout, give this cereal extra points.  They are excellent as a snack, sans milk, also.  Nice crispy little biscuits.  Good texture.

9/10

Packaging

Brown and unappealing.  The lion's head makes tham stand out, but generally a fairly dour looking box.  The lion seems a bit out of place somehow.  Where the fuck is his body actually?  The more I look at that picture (above) the more it sort of freaks me out.  What a weird looking lion.  Again, a bit too small for my liking also.

3/10

Relevance of Mascot

A no brainer, it may seem, but what do chocolate and caramel have in common with a lion?  I guess lions are kind of caramel in colour, and their main is darker, kind of like the contrast between chocolate and caramel.  

7/10

Potential

The taste of a caramel doesn't go terribly well with most things, believe it or not.  I mixed it with some Golden Grahams at the end of the box (there wasn't enough left for a full bowl of cereal) and it really didn't work.  You can eat them on their own however, which is a bonus.

5/10.

Overall

A very pleasant surprise.  I was not expecting to like this cereal as much as I did, but it really works.  They've not tried to do anything too wacky and innovative and stuck to what works, and it really has.  Poor packaging lets it down, but still a good score overall.  

8.5/10