Tasty Mates: Fun-flavoured vegan sweets - a review

I was in serious need of something sweet to brighten up what had been a really dull train journey from Leeds back to London.

Luckily, WHSmith Travel was at my service and in I went to cheer myself up with food – as always.

I needed some sugar, so I decided some sweets would be the perfect pick-me-up, and as I browsed the sweets selection I spotted some sweets I’d never seen before.

And, as an avid sugar addict and sweet-food-lover, this was surprising.

credit: Tasty Mates

Four different coloured packets of Tasty Mates sweets were staring at me, and stood out from the likes of Haribo and other favourites on the shelf.

Salted Caramel, Peaches & Cream, Pear Crumble and Very Berry – all partnered with different personality types.

Naturally I picked them up one-by-one, spent an embarrassing amount of time reading the packaging and invested in the story, and then impulsively decided I needed to try all four.

The Juicy Peach, The Perfect Pear, The Salty One, The Berry Funny One all became my “mates” as I left the store satisfied with my new purchase.

To clarify, each of the flavours is personified by being human shaped, and each packet has the story behind each flavour and each mate on it.

Becoming naturally invested, I decided to dub myself The Salty One – described as having a hint of sass and competitiveness.

Digging in!

Thanks to the story of each mate, I became distracted by my severe need for sugar, and got home – but when I did try each flavour one by one, not one of them disappointed.

I’d never imagined trying a sweet with a salted caramel or pear crumble flavour.

But I did, and now I don’t think I’ll ever go back.

My favourites were peaches and cream and very berry, and admittedly I had finished around half of each pack extraordinarily quickly.

They were perfectly soft but chewy, frustratingly more-ish and a really refreshing new product.

After doing some research, I found that Tasty Mates was a fairly new independent business set up by two “mates” and that made them even more appealing.

YUM!

Supporting indies, trying something new, eating Vegan, and becoming really attached to some non-human personified amalgamations of sugar.

Sounds normal, I know.

All the colours and flavours are natural, the packaging is recyclable AND a percentage of all the profits go to charity.

A win, win.

So, after a boring, lonely train journey, it actually turns out I found myself some new mates.

Thanks, Tasty Mates.

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