7th July 2010, on the menu today...
Crackers (Brands Reviewed: Jacob's Cream Crackers)
Musings:
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"No crackers, Gromit! We've forgotten the crackers!" Yes, I am a huge fan of Wallace and Gromit (W&G). One of my favourite past times, other than writing on TGBD of course, is animation. Not the purely computer-generated stuff that, in my opinion, has made a lot of animated television and cinema look so horrible for a good few years now but the classic hand-drawn work, puppetry (who cannot love the Muppets) and, especially, stop-motion animation with all its wonderful craftsmanship. This particular love for stop-motion was down to the likes of Charlie Chalk (about a clown marooned on an island called Merrytwit with, amongst others, a duck, fairy and elephant for friends...and no I haven't been drinking!), Bertha, Pingu, Paddington Bear, Morph from Tony Hart's famous 'Take Hart' show and, most importantly, the appearance of Nick Park's Wallace and Gromit (W&G) creation in the short film 'A Grand Day Out'. I love all of these but W&G simply blew me away with its two wonderful main characters - an eccentric English inventor who, with the help of his pet come colleague, constantly makes crazy contraptions to help him at home and work. This is set against a backdrop of all things English and has a healthy dose of visual and verbal humour thrown in. Lastly, all W&G productions, including the adverts in which they've featured, have so much going on in them...you can have endless fun looking out for all the not-so-obvious visual gags that pepper scenes.
Of course, as many will know, Wallace (said inventor) loves his cheese and, throughout their now five adventures, a regular supply of Jacob's crackers has always been at hand. Needless to say, being young and impressionable, I quickly adopted this habit and, you know what, it's a habit I've never wanted to get rid of!
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A morning snack. I have always got up early regardless of whether its holiday, the weekend, school, work etc. To people that don't know me, they might assume I am incredibly busy to justify all these early starts but, in reality, I get up; potter around a bit; sip at some tea; read newspaper articles, get bored and attempt the puzzle section as if my mind has got anywhere close to waking up yet; look as if I am contemplating life, the universe and everything when I am just staring in to space; think why on earth I am up this early; take a shower; and finally turn to the idea of charging my Duracell's with some breakfast.
Of course, getting up this early when I was young had some big advantages, that is, if I was quiet enough I had the house to myself and, most importantly, I had the TV to myself. This was important because I grew up in what was a fantastic age for children's television and morning TV in general. To satisfy morning hunger pangs, I got in the habit of putting together a dish of cheese, crackers, packet ham and apple slices along with a very large cup of tea before sitting down to the likes of Children's BBC or The Big Breakfast...ahhh, those were the days.
Taste: The ingredients are reassuringly minimal for a manufactured product with just flour, oil, salt, raising agent and yeast...still don't know where cream comes in. As such, these unflavoured, simple crackers are plain but, unlike some others that have an almost burnt quality to them, Jacob's offering has a pleasant, even sweet taste. Moreover, they are reasonably large for a cracker and, biting in to them, they provide a bit more resistance than you would first expect and thus give you that satisfying sensation of eating something with a bit of substance about it. All in all, a top quality cracker that Jacob's shouldn't change one bit.
Slogan: "The Original and the Best". By not specifying whether this refers to 'the best' amongst Jacob's cracker range or crackers in general, you can read this both ways. In any case, it tries to reinforce in the customer's mind that, whilst this cracker might not have the glitz and glam of others, it does have a long history and therefore must have down something right to have stood the test of time. Moreover, it reassures older customers that within are the same crackers they grew up loving so much. Simple but effective.
Packaging: The basic look hasn't changed...the crackers are still wrapped in the eye-catching orange-yellow packaging with the instantly recognisable horizontal black diamond graphic sporting the words "Cream Crackers". The bright packaging radiates warmth and nicely ties in to the Mediterranean theme suggested by the picture of some crackers topped, not with Cheddar or Wensleydale, but Mozzarella and tomatoes...may be an attempt by Jacob's to jazz up the cracker's image.
Regarding presentation, the nice other touch is the words "Jacob's" inscribed on each wafer. I can only imagine how they do this...maybe they have somebody or something with superhuman nibbling abilities to carve out the letters (if this is the case, I hope to god that, whatever it is, it cleans its teeth!) or a very big laser like Kellogg's were not long ago proposing for writing "Kellogg's" on Corn Flakes or, perhaps, they can't help it because they were just born that way. Whatever the theory, this bit of edible branding gives each cracker that extra bit of specialness and, when you have discarded the packaging and added the contents to your other crackers, you are still in no doubt as to which ones are Jacob's and therefore which ones to keep for yourself and which ones to share with others!
TV Advertising:
Wallace is up to it again with his crazy inventions...this time it's the 'Cinomatic-Snackomatic' (at least I think that's what he said!). Of course, this is tying in to the long-standing connection between the Jacob's brand and Wallace's cheese obsession. The main theme of the advert is as Wallace says at the end "Jacob's Cream Crackers...cracking with anything". Presumably, this is an attempt to diversify the product by encouraging people to experiment and not just enjoy crackers with cheese...works for me.
History
Company history as per Jacob's Wikipedia entry, see here:
The originator of the Jacob's brand name was the small biscuit bakery, W & R Jacob, founded in 1881 in Bridge Street, Waterford, Ireland by William Beale Jacob and his brother Robert. It later moved to Bishop Street in Dublin, Ireland, with a factory in Peter's Row and also opened a branch in Liverpool, England. In 1916, the Bishop Street premises was one of several prominent Dublin buildings occupied by rebels during the Easter Rising. In the 1920s the two branches separated, with the Dublin branch retaining the W & R Jacob name while the Liverpool branch was renamed Jacob's Bakery Ltd. In the 1970s, W & R Jacob in Dublin merged with Boland's Biscuits to form Irish Biscuits Ltd. and moved to Tallaght, Ireland.
In 1990, the two companies once again came under common ownership and became Jacob's Biscuit Group when they were acquired by the French company Groupe Danone. In July 2004, Groupe Danone and United Biscuits announced that they had made an agreement for the latter to acquire Jacob's Biscuit Group. With the acquisition of Groupe Danone's biscuit division by Kraft, the production and sales Jacob's biscuits in Malaysia are done through Kraft Malaysia. However, days later Groupe Danone, United Biscuits, and Fruitfield Foods announced that Jacob's Biscuit Group would be split, with United Biscuits acquiring only the UK portion of the Group and Fruitfield Foods acquiring the Ireland portion. Fruitfield Foods was subsequently renamed the Jacob Fruitfield Food Group.
Since their acquisitions, United Biscuits and Jacob Fruitfield Food Group have sparred in court over the use of the Jacob's brand name.
In 2009, however and after 156 years of making biscuits in Ireland, Jacob Fruitfield shut its Tallaght plant. 220 jobs were lost although the company retained around 100 staff in a variety of roles.
As per the Waitrose website, see here:
Despite its immense popularity with British cheese-lovers, however, the cracker is not as quintessentially English as you might expect. The cracker originates from America, where every well-stocked general store had a barrel of them to rifle through. They were cheap and easy to produce and were even thought to, ahem, keep you regular. Then William Jacob got wind of them and the Cream Cracker was born in his Dublin factory in 1885, from where they were packed in airtight cartons and shipped to homesick Britons around the world.
These days, despite our Gallic cousins' preference for something crusty with their Brie, Jacob's is owned by French food giant Danone. And, although the brand is still top cracker in the UK, it seems our tastes are becoming more sun-dried and Italian than dry and crumbly. Not content to let our enthusiasm wane for this classic, however, Jacob's is now making things more exotic with a Mediterranean range. If that wasn't enough, we're being encouraged to cast aside the Wensleydale for a bit of Mozzarella and tapenade instead. The Victorians would not be amused, but it looks as if our love affair with the cracker is far from drying up.
Web Links:
United Biscuits (owner of Jacob's brand)
Fellow food bloggers:
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