Zweifel JouJoux Chips Nature

This is an interesting little 42g bag of Swiss crisps. It's obviously aimed at children (the under 10s) because it's called Joujoux: a small child's toy. And because you get a surprise in the bag. And because it has a cartoon potato crisp on the bag snowboarding (very Swiss) with a bag full of toys. The cartoon crisp is called Chipsli (also very Swiss).

What's a bit odd, though, is that the crisps themselves are quite normal salted potato crisps perfectly palatable to adults. In the UK crisps or crispy snacks aimed at younger children tend to be luridly coloured or shaped like monsters; often they taste pretty ghastly to adults. But these crisps are what you would expect of an ordinary sea salted crisp from Swiss crisp giant Zweifel: rather finer cut than the usual British crisp but very tasty and with a good light crunch.

However, what you get with JouJoux is an added extra; they come Mit Überraschun!, Avec Surpise! In our case we got a small plastic knight with helmet, sword and shield. There's obviously a story here because Chipsli (a crisp) and his friend Pia (possibly a red chilli) travel to Castle Rabstein and discover a princess, a knight and a crow.... I know this because of the little bit of blurb that came with the figure. You can get plastic figures of all these characters if you eat enough bags of crisps.

JouJoux have a webpage which looks as though you have to sign in, and oddly you have to be over 12. I see this is something to do with an initiative to stop younger children being affected by advertising (Swiss Pledge 2012) which is obviously a good thing, but it is a pity because these crisps are aimed at younger children. Although I am over 12 I didn't have to prove it and just clicked the J'ai 12 ans ou plus button to find Chipsli's adventures, and all sorts of other jollies.

There's a bee character called Maia (or Maja depending on whether you speak French or German) who has lots of friends available as rubbers for the end of your pencil, and there are stickers, tattoos, mini jigsaws and luminous stars. Also on the webpage there are comic strips to read. Gripping stuff.

I quite liked these. Perfectly nice (and not too madly unhealthy) crisps with fun surprises in the bag. And I accidentally ate nearly the whole bag while concentrating on the accounts at work.