part two: the Tim Tam travesty

Holy crap, it's an international phenomenon. After reading of Adam's Kit Kat malfunction here on Lily & Chew, LC sent us news of a similar state of affairs in Melbourne. This time it appears workers at the Arnott's factory have been struggling to hit their Tim Tam moulds. (No, the obvious similarities in the aliterative word patterns of the two biscuit treats in question have not been lost on us.)

It is worth stating for readers unfamiliar with the Tim Tam that 35 million packets of this tasty chocolatey biscuit treat are sold in Australia annually -- that's nearly two packets per Australian. According to Wikipedia, the biscuit was named after the winning horse in the 1958 Kentucky Derby. While there have been many variations produced since the first Tim Tam was sold in 1964, the basic formula of a cream centre sandwiched between two biscuits and smothered in chocolate has remained constant. Until recently, that is.

Earlier this year, LC's regular Friday afternoon tea fell to pieces as she tucked into her beloved Tim Tams with her work mates at SB only to find something quite unexpected. Here is the account posted to Arnott's of what followed:

Good aftenoon,

I never thought I would see the day that I'd find reason to compose this feedback to you over a Tim Tam, however...

At our workplace, we have just bought and gleefully begun consuming our beloved Friday afternoon Tim Tam fix. To our surprise, we've found several of the TTs to be without their cream centres!

These biscuits did seem to have a slightly different external appearance ... then once bitten in to there was a slight hollow where the cream normally is, and just, really, biscuit-on-biscuit action.

This particularly caused tears for one team member who broke a week-long wheat-free existence, for the love of the Tim Tam. She's a trifle upset that she'd lost her healthy high ground for little more than the wheat based portion of the TT, if you follow our drift!

I'm sure you can understand our compulsion to inform you of this immediately. After all, if we can't rely on Tim Tams in this world, I ask you - what is there left?

Here's the kicker. For their troubles, the gang at SB were sent $5... redeemable as a Coles voucher! That is TIGHT (about £2.20 worth of groceries at Tesco.) Thankfully, there was a special on Tim Tams in Coles Richmond that week so they were able to buy two replacement packets with their coupon.