The Lost Taste of Spanish Industrial Pastries

The Lost Taste of Spanish Industrial Pastries

The industrial pastries eaten in Spain during the 70s and 80s bear no resemblance to what is sold today. This conclusion runs through a discussion with over a hundred comments about childhood sweets, kikos, tigretones, chocolate horns and cakes. The diagnosis repeats itself: the original recipe has changed, along with its taste, texture and smell. It is not just nostalgia. It is a specific complaint about trans fats, margarine instead of butter, low-quality vegetable oils and additives that were previously absent or used differently.

The starting point is a list of products that are now almost archaeological finds: gummy candies, kikos, tigretones, chocolate horns. Some were sold unwrapped, within reach of everyone, and shopkeepers wrapped them in brown paper. Chocolate was injected into the horn and customers sought it out immediately after leaving the store. That format, they say, is the only genuine one. The rest is an imitation with shiny packaging.

Why old kikos broke teeth while new ones melt like butter

Texture is the first sign of change. Kikos from the seventies required strong jaws; current ones dissolve easily. Hardness was part of the product, not a defect. The same peine with stick licorice, chewed for hours, or rubber candies that turned into gum after being worked in the mouth.

The smell has also disappeared. Eating kikos during class had a price: the aroma betrayed students meters away. Today, that olfactory trail is impossible. Sunflower seeds, however, retain some prestige: brands Arias, Churruca and Facundo are cited as references from an era when the newsstand was the neighborhood's social hub.

Some argue the texture change stems from economic reasons: replacing expensive raw materials with cheaper ones without consumers noticing much difference. Butter was swapped for margarine. Animal fat was replaced by palm, palm kernel or sunflower vegetable oils. The result, they say, is a plastic-tasting product that is worse for health.

The pastry business: from bakery to industrial packaging

The transformation wasn't just about ingredients. The sales channel changed too. In the 70s, donuts and palmeras were bought loose at the bakery. The baker picked them up with brown paper and handed them over. No plastic wrappers. Everything was, according to those who lived it, more natural and human.

That model vanished with the rise of packaged pastries. Bollycaos, Phoskitos, Panteras Rosas and Bonys arrived at kiosks with an outer layer that, according to nostalgics, had substance and character. The chocolate was more intense. The jam, more present. Today, complaints are unanimous: current pastries taste like plastic in comparison.

This phenomenon isn't exclusively Spanish. In Japan, a participant living there for years found a solution at home: their partner learned to bake, providing fresh bread, cakes and cookies. It is the luxury of avoiding the industrial pastry aisle.

Kinder Eggs, Pokémon Tazos and other commercial strategies

It wasn't all about taste. The industry also sold toys. Kinder Eggs were bought for the gift, not the chocolate. Some accumulated entire boxes of toys. Potato chip bags containing Pokémon Tazos created a parallel market: packs of four to six units bought in bulk to complete collections. Some flavors, like bacon, no longer exist.

The strategy worked. One participant recalls eating five packs at once for the Tazos without gaining weight because they played football daily. The caloric bomb was offset by exercise. Other products, like Cheetos balls with mouse mascots, disappeared when the brand modernized its image. The subsequent rounds were nothing alike.

The Kinder Egg case includes an anecdote summarizing children's relationship with these products. A girl under two ran toward the display in the supermarket and knocked it down. Her mother collected everything and took ten or twelve broken eggs home. The supermarket, a daily customer, didn't charge her. The girl ate chocolate as if there were no tomorrow. The next day, she tried again.

Quality collapse: margarine for butter and poor oils

The most repeated diagnosis is ingredient substitution. Butter was changed for margarine. Animal fat for low-quality vegetable oils. Sugar for glucose or fructose syrup. The result is a cheaper-to-produce product that is worse for health.

Some defend that the old taste wasn't better, but idealized by memory. It is a psychological argument: fewer pastries were eaten, hence fewer obese children. But this clashes with data from confectionery workers: leftover cake scraps were reused. They were chopped, shaped into cones, dipped in chocolate and sold as zainitos or morenitos. This practice continues in Asturias. In Madrid, the same process becomes chocolate truffles with a splash of whisky.

Comparison with traditional bakeries is inevitable. Paco patisseries, which still exist, maintain a flavor similar to the 80s and 90s. But finding something close to what was eaten then requires high-end confectioneries. Childhood Paco-style treats have become premium. The rest is an industrial product that only keeps the name.

Mostachones and other lower-sugar alternatives

Against industrial pastries, some have found refuge in traditional products. Mostachones, with only 7% sugar, have become an alternative for those wanting sweets that taste like the past. Seville-based Obando bakery sells them with frequent offers and free shipping on small orders. The problem is shelf life: they don't last long.

Comparison with conventional pastries is devastating. Any bun, cupcake or similar item today has 25% sugar. Mostachones, with 7%, taste sweet but aren't cloying. It is an option for those accumulating products who don't want to give up flavor.

The other path is making it at home. Those with a home bakery or a partner who bakes can afford the luxury of eating fresh bread, cakes and cookies without going to the supermarket. It is the most radical and likely most effective solution.

Future of industrial pastries: will old flavors return?

The question looming over the discussion is whether the industry will ever recover original recipes. The most probable answer is no. Trans fats were cheaper and tastier, but their ban in many countries forced product reformulation. The result is a different flavor that convinces no one.

Some argue the problem isn't just the recipe, but scale. Producing millions of units requires stable, cheap ingredients with long shelf lives. Butter goes rancid. Margarine doesn't. Authentic chocolate melts. Substitutes don't. Industry chose logistics over taste.

Nostalgia, however, has limits. Some missed products no longer exist because they weren't profitable. Others vanished due to ownership or strategy changes. And others were simply reformulated to comply with regulations. The result is a landscape of lost flavors recovered only in artisanal bakeries or memory.

With these factors, industrial pastries will likely continue prioritizing efficiency over taste. There will be exceptions, premium products recovering parts of the original recipe. But the bulk of the market will keep selling the same thing in different packaging. The question is how long consumers will pay gold prices for a product that tastes like plastic.