Merrimack Valley Snack Company

By now you know how much I love my snacks.  Snack mixes in particular.  And trying new ones?  Yup, I'm always in.

At some point I got a gift box that contained a single product from Merrimack Valley Snack Company, a brand I can find very little about online.  I don't really know the origin.  The product I got was full of mislabelled information.  I can't say this is a reputable company, in any way.  But at least it made for a good adventure as I tried it ...

Chichester Snack Mix Box.

"A delightful snack mix composed of crunchy pretzel nuggets, cheddar cheese crackers, and premium nuts."

What is "Chichester"?  I'm not sure.  Perhaps the city in England?  But this looked like yummy snack mix, the style I like.

It also seemed like the description wasn't quite accurate.  It promised pretzel nuggets, cheese crackers, and nuts ... but what about all the spicy looking sticks right there in the photo?

Ball Park Mix.

I opened the box to find a sealed bag, labelled "Ball Park Mix".

Hmm.  The box says "Chichester" the contents say "Ball Park".  Chichester or Ball Park?  Which was it?  Is, uh, Chichester a ball park?  The mystery continues.

Different Ingredients.

Surely they just must be different names for the mix, perhaps a re-branding happened, but same ingredients, right?

Ha.

The first ingredient on the bag?  "Peanuts".  On the box? "Butter Toffee Peanuts".  Which was it? Plain or candied?  The following ingredients were not the same either.  I was further confused.

The real answer seemed to follow the box: butter toffee peanuts, taco sesame sticks, cajun corn sticks, pretzel balls, and cheddar whales.  Well, "whale", singular, but we'll get into that next.  So, even more odd, the ingredients match the outer box, not the inner bag.

Snack Mix Contents.

There you can see my single, lone, cheddar whale.  The other items were decently distributed throughout the rest of the mix.  I dug in, eager to try it all.

I didn't care for ... well, anything really.

I don't really like pretzels to begin with, so the pretzel balls were a let down, I kept expecting them to be crunchy nuts or something more interesting, but alas, pretzels.  But I'll give Merrimack Valley Snack Company a point for offering a non standard pretzel shape.

Both types of sticks sounded great, and flavorful little sticks are usually my favorite parts of snack mixes, but, alas, neither the "taco sesame" nor "cajun corn" ones really tasted like anything other than some random spice powders, and the sticks weren't flavorful nor crisp.  I didn't taste sesame at all.

And finally, butter toffee peanuts.  These didn't really fit in the with mix well at all.  I'm all for sweet and savory, but the kinda zesty spices and the sweet burnt butter toffee clashed.  Also, yes, they tasted more burnt than nice sweet toffee.  At least they were crunchy and had a nice shell?

Overall, I had more fun figuring out what this mix was than actually eating it.

**+.