New product Wednesday, at Dallas-area stores: Emerald Cocoa Roast Almonds

by Teresa Gubbins

Emerald Nuts is a marketing wunderkind, making a name for itself in just four years with its offbeat ads, including one that starred the now-deceased Robert Goulet trashing an office and crawling on the ceiling.

Emerald's mission is to make snacking on nuts easier -- to quote the Web site, it "delivers choice, convenience, and excitement". Wow, excitement just from snacking on nuts? Anyway, the line has two new intriguing flavors: Sea Salt and Pepper Cashews and Cocoa Roast Almonds, slightly more intriguing because it's 1. sweet-ish and 2. novel.

The concept of an almond with a light cocoa-powder coating is great: You get the nut and a touch of chocolate, but not as intense as chocolate-covered almonds, which are awesome but a bit much. However, the coating on these is funky -- only nominally chocolatey, and seemingly designed for everything except taste. Namely:

• Calories. Cocoa Roast Almonds are advertised as having no more calories than roasted almonds (150 calories per 1.5-ounce serving), and the way they do that is with the addition of not one but two artificial sweeteners: acesulfame potassium, also known as "Ace K," and sucralose. You can taste it pretty quickly: There's a weird tingly quality on your tongue and a metallic aftertaste that overshadows the cocoa flavor. And the one-two punch of all that artificial sweetener creates a slight jittery buzz.
• Mobility. Diamond bakes the coating onto the almond, with the result being that it leaves no residue on your fingers. Or, to quote their fact sheet, "Baked-in flavor = no mess!" You're on the GO, see, and you can't be tied down with rinsing your hands and towels and such. On a related note, the plastic canister, a deplorable Grade-7 recyclable, is advertised as being able to fit into your car cup-holder.

Emerald is an offshoot of Diamond Foods, which used to be a grower cooperative, mostly walnuts, but has become a food/marketing company. (As opposed to Blue Diamond, which was founded in 1910 and remains an almond-centric grower cooperative which also makes products such as those nut thins.)

Other fun facts from Emerald: These nuts provide "Value-added seasoning for the consumer who is tired of plain old cashews." And the "top 3 consumer motive for snacking is 'wanted something sweet'". And now they've got it. Sortof.

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