Why the Griffin’s sampler box is missing your favourite biscuit

By Checkpoint of RNZ

Someone once said a balanced diet is a cookie in each hand - they could have worked for Checkpoint.

This week we’ve had our snouts in the good old-fashioned Griffin’s biscuit sampler box that one of our producers bought, and, boy, has it brought back the memories.

And it’s proved controversial. There used to be a broader selection in the box, and some of you don’t agree with the designated survivors. What happened to the Swiss Creme? And didn’t the pink wafer used to be a wafer finger?

Checkpoint asked people about their Christmas biscuit habits, starting with which one they reach for first.

“I wouldn’t have that one - hundreds and thousands, not really my thing,” one person said.

“Chocolate Wheaten,” said another. “I wouldn’t do a pink wafer or a chocolate chip,” said a third.

Some asked what happened to the Cameo Creme.

Griffin’s NZ marketing director Hannah McKee said the origin of the sampler box was lost to history, but she had seen a “snippet from a Nelson newspaper which celebrates the sampler with 19 different biscuits in 1931”.

A Griffin's sampler box. Photo / Griffins, Woolworths

She said the decisions on which biscuits go in go “all the way to the boardroom”. There are nine flavours in the sampler at present.

“Nine’s pretty good and it’s 86 biscuits in total, so there’s plenty in there for friends and family, for sure.”

She said there had been backlash about which flavours make the cut.

“We get people dialling in to our customer services team all the time asking for their favourites to be included … it comes down to ones that won’t impact on others.

“So something like a Griffin’s Gingernut wouldn’t be safe in a sampler box because it would make your little pink wafers or your choc fins taste a bit gingery, so we need to make sure they are bikkies that stand on their own. So it’s a very careful compilation of flavours in there.”

Peppermints were also “not friends of the sampler family”.

“We try not to mix it up too much, so that particular box has stayed the same for many years. We make it once a year, we sell it from about October through to February. So we do review it annually, but we don’t look to make changes lightly.”

As for the Cameo Creme, McKee said to “keep an eye out for Christmas 2025”.