Oops We Did It Again by Health Lab
Posted: September 26, 2023 Updated: October 20, 2023
Another weirdly named product, the Oops We Did It Again cookie by the also oddly named Health Lab. If you’re familiar with my website you’d have seen the review of Health Lab’s Mini Mix which boasts gluten free, vegan versions of favourites like Bounty and Cherry Ripe.
Off the success of those taste tests I decided to treat myself to an incredibly expensive box of Oops We Did It Again. These are Health Lab’s answer to the absolute classic Wagon Wheel by Aussie brand Arnott’s. It’s two biscuits sandwiched together with jam and loads of marshmallow before being dipped in smooth chocolate.
Sounds delightful, right? Read on, you might be surprised.
First impressions
Something I’ve been doing lately with reviews is weighing products. This is particularly useful when purchasing high-end, gluten free artisan breads. While their overall price (say, $15) is very high, the loaves often weigh significantly more than your standard GF supermarket loaf.
The last set of biscuits I weighed however, were the Arnott’s Snack Right breakfast cookies, because at $8 for a box of three you would hope they are as big as described. Happily in that case some were actually larger!
No such luck here.
A three pack of Oops We Did It Again by Health Lab goes for around $12 at the supermarket. I got my pack on sale for $10. At 195g for three cookies that’s about $60 per kilo – mind boggling.
So, weighed in their packets none of the cookies matched the 65g label. They were 61g, 57g and the lowest was 54g. That’s more than 10% lower than what it should be.
This set me off, already gluten free products are typically smaller and more expensive than their wheat-based counterparts. So why is it that when paying for such a premium product, there isn’t the quality control to ensure we get what is advertised?
Anyway, on to the taste!
The taste
Grizzling about the weight (or lack there of) my coffee was made so I sat down to try this out. My husband was at home too so I decided to be nice and share. I cut it in half and what did I see? A whole lot of jam staring back at me!
The box says plant-based marshmallow at least three times, do you see any marshmallow? Nope, just a bunch of jam. Have a look at the product on the box at the top of the page, it’s 90% marshmallow, 10% jam – just like a Wagon Wheel. Just like I was expecting.
Nope.
The jam is delicious, as annoyed as I am by how much of it there is, it does at least taste good. The mylk chocolate on the outside is really nice too.
The gluten free biscuits either side are crap. The taste is fine but they are a complete crumbly mess, I had to keep a plate under me the entire time because every bite resulted in a waterfall of crumbs. It’s 2023, we don’t need to suffer biscuits this crumbly.
The verdict
Given that this product looks nothing like what was advertised, I guess the question is, did I get a dud batch or are they always like this? I’ll update this post when I open the remaining two biscuits.
I wrote to Health Lab, sending through photos of both the underweight biscuits and the lack of marshmallow. Happily they offered a refund, but I didn’t feel much confidence in their explanation for the lack of marshmallow.
“We’ve recently had a lot of issues with the marshmallow & have found that it unfortunately was collapsing which is why your biscuit was lacking in marshmallow but you’ll be pleased to know that we’ve worked SUPER hard to fix it & we’re seeing improvements everyday”
To me this reads as, “we know there’s a problem with our product, but we’re still selling it because we don’t care about our customers.”
Clearly they are using a lot more jam to compensate for the lacklustre marshmallow. Talking about it to my dad he made an interesting point.
Jam is heavier than marshmallow. If they hadn’t used way more jam than advertised, it would have been even lighter.
So that’s a worry isn’t it? Without the excessive jam this might have weighed 45g – 20g lighter or nearly a third of what it should be.
Safe to say this product:
- is nothing like a Wagon Wheel,
- has no marshmallow, and
- will not be seen in my shopping trolley ever again.
Also I deserve a prize for getting a certain Britney Spears song in my head whenever I worked on this article. 😅
Where to by Oops We Did It Again by Health Lab
If after reading this review you still want to try one of these for yourself you can easily buy it at Coles and Woolworths. It’s also available at online retailers like FOD Shop, and other vegan stores.
PRODUCT DETAILS
Gluten free: Legit, nil detected.
Vegetarian / vegan: Vegan
Allergens: Soy, sulphites. May contain: Peanut, tree nuts, egg, lupin, milk, sesame.
Serving size: Three individually wrapped cookies.
Is knowing what gluten free products not to buy useful to you? Check out this sweet treat review.