Tigretones return to stores, now made in Tunisia

Tigretones return, made in Tunisia and without the taste of the past

After months off the shelves over the apricot jam scare, Tigretones are back. They return with the same brand, similar packaging, and one novelty that has hit fans hard: the package now reads "produced in Tunisia". The classic snack, the one bought at school break, is no longer baked here. The news has landed like a cold shower for those who treasured the memory of the original flavour and now find a product that, they say, resembles the old one "like chalk and cheese".

What peine with the apricot jam

The reason for the withdrawal was, as recalled in the discussion, suspicion that the apricot jam filling was carcinogenic. There is no official ruling in the material confirming or denying this: what is discussed is what the stores said and the product's disappearance, not a health report. Rumour and evidence should be kept apart. What is a verifiable fact is that Tigretones stopped being sold for a while and have now returned.

The comeback has not been welcomed with enthusiasm. The first reaction is disappointment: the taste is not the same, the size seems smaller and the industrial origin has changed. Some sum it up wryly: "they've surely made it smaller and less carcinogenic now". Irony is the gentlest way to put it.

Why they are made in Tunisia and not in Spain

The million-dollar question. The relocation of production to Tunisia is read in the thread as a symptom, not an anecdote. Some attribute it to labour costs: a worker in Tunisia is cheaper than one in Spain. Others add tax pressure: income tax, social security contributions and the burden on companies push businesses towards countries with lower costs. It is an explanation repeated across many sectors, not just packaged snacks.

The result is a stinging paradox: the product is made abroad but sold at the usual price or higher. "The price, of course, isn't Tunisian but Swiss," one comment sums up. The brand belongs to an international giant and production has been offshored. The consumer pays for the brand and the memory, not the factory.

The problem is not just the origin: it's the taste

The most repeated complaint is not economic, it is sensory. Today's Tigretones do not taste like the old ones. And it is not an isolated case: the discussion mentions Chocapic, whose flavour changed when they were given Nutriscore A, and Bollycao, whose filling now has nothing to do with the eighties version. "All those flavours of our childhood no longer exist," someone laments.

Reformulating products to improve their nutritional profile has a cost: fat is lost, sugar is lost, flavour is lost. And the consumer notices. The industry calls it improvement; the palate calls it betrayal.

Nostalgia as a business

The Tigretón is not a snack: it is an object of memory. It was bought at break time, swapped in the playground, eaten in a hurry. That is why the disappointment runs deeper. "I don't buy this for my body; I bought it for my soul," one comment says, capturing the general feeling. Nostalgia is a huge market and brands know it. But when the product falls short of the memory, the effect is the opposite: the bond is broken.

Some have decided never to buy them again. Some still buy them, one a year, to remember. And some point out that the problem is not Tunisia, but the industrial logic that turns a snack cake into a global commodity.

The unsettling fact

In the end, the discussion about Tigretones ends up being a discussion about the country. About what is made here, what is imported, and what remains of Spain's food industry. An after-school snack as a thermometer of an economy that offshores even the most trivial things. Meanwhile, the package stays on the shelf, with the same brand and a different origin. The taste, though, is no longer the same.