Hi, this is a very important update to the below post. Last week, via the goodness that is Twitter and Adam Hills, I discovered supermarkets around Australia are now stocking FruChocs. Calloo Callay! It’s only taken a billionty years (approx), but yes, they are here. Of course the sad thing is they have been re-branded something a bit lame: Menz Chocolate Apricot Balls, as they reckon people in places like Queensland can’t pronounce the words Fru (from fruit) and Choc (from chocolate) together. Hmmm. But anyway they are here. Do yourself a favour, as someone once said. But in moderation.

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I want to say thanks Globalisation! Melbourne supermarkets, shopping centres and tiny specialty stores are a cornucopia of  international cuisine, being as we are, a multicultural society.  So  there oodles of Hershey Bars, the long-lost Tab and Jaffa Cakes, as well as American drinks made using corn syrup. I can marvel at how anyone could contemplate drinks made from beef and wonder for the nth time, what goes into the Worcestershire Sauce my Dad loves. There are undecipherable plastic bulk cartoons of noodles from remotest China in Technicolor splendour and shelves bursting with rare spices and spiky unnamed fruit. Not to mention pastries imported (fresh apparently) from Poland, Italy and Germany.

So I’m left wondering: where are the FruChocs? A heritage-listed delicacy, native to Adelaide, Australia, they’re made from squished up apricots and peaches covered in the tastiest compound chocolate money can buy. And they’re created within 1000kms. Fresh Australian pineapple is shipped further. So why can I buy Italian made baked goods from half a world a way and not Adelaide-made snacks in Melbourne? They can send a dude in a FruChoc suit to Dubai, so how about sending a truck East over the state border? We’re friendly. We’re fans. We’re neighbours. I promise, there are plenty of exiled South Australians who would buy them.

Mr FruChoc

Having said all this, often, for almost 20 years,  I’ve happened on a stash. It’s karma. FruChoc karma. No other retailer has them in all of Melbourne except for one random, average suburban supermarket. Maybe it’s a test, prior to world domination.  Or a shipping mistake. Don’t know. All I know is blessed be the Anonymous FruChoc Stockest. Truly, this is a miracle.