Glass milk bottles and other vanished food and drink icons

With the recent news that Dairy Crest is abandoning glass milk bottles, we take a look at what else has fallen out of favour.

Dairy Crest announced last week that it will be closing down its glass bottling plant in Hanworth, West London, and its cream potting facility in Chard, Somerset.

The dairy giant says that while the Hanworth site will remain operational for around two more years, the use of glass milk bottles has dwindled since 1975, when 94% of milk was put into glass bottles. In 2012, the figure stood at just 4%.

But many will feel nostalgic as they think back to the clinking noise on the doorstep that's going to vanish forever. Will you miss glass milk bottles? With their usage dropping massively, have you even seen a glass bottle recently?

What else do we miss?

This news almost inevitably made us think of other food and drink products we wished were still available. Perhaps we’d be better off eating something else than the list (of mainly sweets) below, but we miss them all the same.

Curry Twiglets – a flavour of the yeast extract snack that was phased out. I’m not a massive fan of the original flavour, but I greatly miss these.

Cadbury Snaps – Snaps were Pringle-shaped chocolates, with flavours like mint (my favourite) and orange. Designed for sharing and incredibly addictive, I’m amazed and disappointed that these were discontinued.

Dweebs – Like Wonka’s Nerds but better – the crunch of Nerds never sat well with me, whereas these softer, chewy sweets were like fat Millions which came with three flavours in every box.

Shakey Jake – More remembered for the song that’s stuck in my head (some 20-odd years later) than the flavour. But it was a decent shake, which was removed from sale for reasons unknown to me.

Campino – These swirly strawberry and yoghurt sweets had a memorable appearance, but didn’t last in the UK. They were perhaps outcompeted by their caramel cousins Werther’s Original, which are made by the same manufacturer.

Ice Cream & Cola Chewits – Ice Cream Chewits were a childhood favourite of mine. And lovemoney.com Editor John Fitzsimons says he remembers Cola Chewits, which are actually listed on Chewits’ website – but I have never heard of, or seen these, before. If you know where to get them please let us know.

Opal Fruits – still here but under a different name: Starburst. However, I remain convinced that the taste changed during the changeover, and Starburst just isn’t as good. I may just be imagining this – what do you think?

Turkey Twizzlers – I won’t make myself popular with this one, but I remember thoroughly enjoying Twizzlers at school. As an adult, I realise that there were many problems with them, but if someone could have a go at packing the same taste into a product that wasn’t quite so awful, I’d give it another go.

Will you miss glass milk bottles? What other food and drink items do you miss? Let us know about them in the Comments below.

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