This is going to be Part 1 of several – I ordered a huge box of snacks from New Zealand from Kiwi Grub Box. They let you choose from several options – different flavours of chips and the like, and they also included Marmite and onion soup mix for dip.

Bluebird Chicken Chips – I’ve heard a lot about chicken-flavoured chips from Australian friends – it’s a popular flavour down under. Interestingly, these are marketed as “chips” – I would have thought they would be called “crisps” like in other Commonwealth countries, but I guess they’re an outlier alongside us Canadians. As for the chips themselves, they’re a nice ruffle chip with a mild roast chicken flavour. I could see them going well with onion dip.

Mayceys Sour Feijoa Sweets – The first question is “what is a feijoa?” Feijoas are originally from South America and are related to guavas, but have become massively widespread and popular in New Zealand. They’re very hard to transport, however, so they haven’t made it to export markets on a large scale yet. It’s supposed to have a very distinctive and fragrant aroma. Unfortunately, since I can’t get my hands on the actual fruit, I have no real way to compare it to the candy. The candy does have a very floral aroma and a very unique flavour – something like wintergreen, real strawberries, artificial cherry, and fresh rubber all mixed together. Apparently the unique flavour in feijoas is methyl benzoate, which is also a byproduct of cocaine, so it’s what drug dogs are trained to detect. Probably not a good idea to take these through an airport.

L&P – L&P stands for “Lemon and Paeroa“, the town where mineral water was first used to make this pop (there’s a giant roadside L&P bottle there). This drink is a Kiwi classic, with the tongue-in-cheek tagline “World Famous in New Zealand”. It’s very sweet but with a taste of real lemon juice, though so sweet there isn’t any of the tartness of real lemons. It makes me think of a very sugary sparkling lemonade.

Fruit Burst – Individually wrapped soft chews, like a firmer Hi-Chew, in different flavours: Wildberry, Strawberry, Orange, Banana, and Lemon & Lime. I can tell it’s a “freebie” candy, the kind in you get in loot bags and waiting room dishes. It’s not bad, if serious work on the jaws. I’d say Wildberry or Orange were the tastiest, and Strawberry my least favourite.

Griffin’s Original Toffee Pops Bites – Unfortunately I was shipped wrong item; I had ordered “Hokey Pokey Squiggles” because I wanted to try hokey pokey, a kind of honeycomb toffee that’s really popular in NZ. Instead I got Toffee Pops from the same brand, but honestly, it’s not a big deal – I’m not going to turn my nose up on chocolate! These are little bite sized milk chocolates with caramel and a cookie base inside. They’re satisfyingly chewy and pretty good.