By Andrew Nuttall
Copyright dailyrecord
With Christmas approaching, shoppers will be filling their baskets with festive chocolate tubs. Whether for party nibbles or as thoughtful presents, these tins appear every year without exception, but there’s a fresh mega selection hitting shelves in 2025. Marks and Spencer (M&S) has supersized its Christmas chocolates this year, launching the latest Big Mix Tin packed with 1.2kg of chocolates and toffees . The new assortment tin features salted caramel, butterscotch, and fudge, amongst other flavours. The festive collection became a sensation with some customers when tins began appearing on social media, reports the Mirror . After being thoroughly swayed, I tracked down a tin at my local M&S to discover whether these could potentially substitute something we’ve enjoyed every Christmas for as long as I can recall. Lifting the lid, there’s clearly plenty of variety, with ten different choices, ensuring there’s definitely something to suit all tastes. My top picks so far have been the cream ones, particularly the strawberry and orange versions, which were the perfect blend of sweet and flavour without being too overpowering. The caramel biscuit chocolate was unexpectedly delightful, too—and nearly passed for Biscoff, which I’ve always believed deserves a spot in one of the traditional Christmas collections. When I offered these to visiting family, it didn’t appear particularly significant to me, but nearly everyone mentioned that it was pleasant that they featured “proper” foil wrapping. One of them said it was “just like Quality Street used to be,” and it’s obvious why plenty of other customers felt similarly about these delights. While some well-known chocolate tubs often contain a heap of one type of sweet and barely any of another, the M&S tub offered a fairly even spread of chocolates, ensuring there was plenty for everyone to sample or enjoy their preferred treat. In total, I counted up 107 chocolates for £12, which works out to roughly 9p per chocolate. In the photo below, I lined up each bite-sized delight to see just how this particular assortment was divided, and here’s the outcome: It’s worth noting that every tub will vary slightly, as that’s the whole point of an assortment. However, if this experiment is anything to go by, you should end up with a decent quantity of each sweet to avoid squabbles and disputes on Christmas Day. I’ve done these sorts of tests before, and you don’t get anywhere near that amount in Celebrations, Quality Street, Roses, and Heroes without purchasing several plastic tubs. Increasing the size of the tin will obviously provide plenty of space to ensure that the best treats don’t vanish too quickly. Given the popularity of Celebrations, Quality Street, Roses, and Heroes, it’s understandable why most shops don’t try to compete in this market. But I’m genuinely pleased that Ma&S has given it a go, as I truly believe these are far superior to what most Brits are used to indulging in over the festive period. While it may seem a bit extravagant to spend £12 on a tub of chocolates, you do get a good quantity of genuinely tasty treats for that price. When you consider that a pack of the ‘Big Four’ can cost shoppers nearly £7 for something typically less than 600g, this seems like an obvious choice. If a tub weighing over a kilo seems excessive, M&S offers a smaller 650g pack with all the same chocolates for £6. These items can be found in the seasonal aisles alongside other sweet delights such as mince pies, shortbread biscuits, and the latest variation on Percy Pig’s iconic sweets.
