Valley Produce Company Shortbread and Chocolate: The Gift Side of the Range

The sweet half of the Valley Produce Company range is built for giving, and the packaging decides which piece does which job. Shortbread comes three ways: a 175g bag from $7.95, a printed 180g tube at $12.95, or the same 180g in a tin at $19.95. The chocolate skips the choice and arrives boxed from $14.95. One biscuit, three prices, three gifts, and a box that needs no wrapping.

Most people meet this brand at the cracker end of a cheese board, next to the seed crisps. The sweet lines are the ones that get wrapped. The way in is still a bag: VPC Shortbread Ginger 175g at $7.95, ginger warmth carried through butter shortbread, and the pack to buy when the biscuits are for you rather than for somebody else. The whole Valley Produce Company range sits on one page, sweet and savoury together. Our Valley Produce Company brand overview covers the savoury half, the crackers and the fruit pastes. This piece takes the sweet side format by format.

What the container is actually buying

A tube and a tin hold the same 180g of shortbread. The tube is $12.95 and the tin is $19.95, so the seven dollars between them buys the container, not the biscuit. Whether that is a fair trade depends entirely on who opens it. A tin gets kept, refilled with something else and found again in a drawer years later. A tube does its job on the day and then goes in the recycling, which is the right trade when the biscuit is the present and the container is not.

Four designs are made in both formats: bottlebrush, waratah, the Aussie beach scene and the cockatoo. Where both are on the shelf you can choose the artwork first and the format second. Stock moves design by design through the season, so check the picture you want is there in the format you want before you plan a gift around it. The bottlebrush tube is the one to buy in multiples: three tubes come to $38.85, where two tins come to $39.90. The Aussie beach tin is the one to hand over in person, because a tin reads as a present before anybody opens it.

The sweet range by format

Sizes and prices are the ones on the shelf now. The last column is the part worth reading: these formats do different jobs at Christmas even where the contents overlap.

The chocolate boxes, including the ones that are a joke

The chocolate is boxed rather than bagged, which is what makes it giftable from $14.95 with no wrapping required. Milk chocolate almonds are the safe box, 220g of roasted almonds coated in milk chocolate and nothing to explain to anyone. The milk and white chocolate raspberries are the sweeter option, raspberry jelly smothered in milk and white chocolate, and the milk chocolate Turkish delight is Turkish delight pieces smothered in milk chocolate, which is a yes or a no rather than a maybe.

Then there is the novelty corner, where the joke is on the box and the sweet inside is named on the pack. Milk chocolate koala poo is liquorice under milk chocolate, and kangaroo poo is chocolate-coated raspberries under the same gag. Both are 220g boxes at $14.95, the same size and price as the plain almonds. Know the recipient. They land well with teenagers, visiting relatives and most workplaces, and poorly as a formal client gift.

Building a whole gift out of three pieces

The golf and fishing themes are the most useful thing in the sweet range, because each one runs across three formats at three prices. You can assemble a complete gift for one person without buying a hamper and without repeating yourself.

Golf, as the worked example. The golf shortbread tube is $12.95, the golf confectionery jar of acid drops is $7.95, and golf milk chocolate almonds are $16.95. The three together come to $37.85, which is a respectable gift for a person you know exactly one fact about. Fishing runs the same idea across a tube, a jar of rock candy and its own box of almonds, so check which of the three is in stock the day you build it. For an Australian animals tube, the jar to stack beside it is Kangaroo Balls butterballs or Koala Tucker eucalyptus drops, $7.95 either way.

One number to notice before you commit: the themed chocolate almonds are $16.95 against $14.95 for the plain box. Two dollars for the printed design. If the theme is the point, pay it. If the almonds are the point, do not.

What survives an Australian December

Shortbread is the sturdier half of this range. A tube or a tin holds its shape in a car boot, and a butter biscuit takes a warm afternoon better than a chocolate box does. If you are posting a parcel north, or leaving gifts in a hot car for an afternoon, the shortbread copes and the chocolate is the one to carry inside with you.

The gluten free pure butter shortbread is the quiet one to remember, because it means a mixed table does not need a separate biscuit tin for one guest. Read the bag before you serve anyone coeliac. The label on the pack is the authority, not a website description.

If you would rather cook with it than wrap it, shortbread crumbs are the base of a chocolate salami, which turns a bag of biscuits and a block of chocolate into something better than either was alone.

Questions we get about Valley Produce Company shortbread

What is the difference between the shortbread tube and the tin?

The container. Both are 180g of Valley Produce Company butter shortbread. The tube is $12.95, the tin is $19.95, and the tins are sold as keepsake tins, which is what the extra seven dollars is buying. Four designs are made in both formats, so if the artwork is the point rather than the tin, the tube can carry the same picture for less. Which designs are available in which format moves through the season, so check both before you decide.

Which Valley Produce Company chocolate makes the better gift?

A 220g box of milk chocolate almonds at $14.95 is the one nobody hands back, and the golf and fishing versions at $16.95 are the same idea for somebody with a hobby. The koala and kangaroo boxes cost the same as the plain almonds and are funnier, which suits a family gift better than a client one. All of it arrives boxed, so none of it needs wrapping.

What is pictured on the shortbread tubes and tins?

Australian subjects, almost entirely. Native flowers on the bottlebrush, waratah, wattle and gumnut blossom lines, animals on the Australian Animals tubes, birds on the kookaburra and cockatoo, plus a beach scene and the golf and fishing themes. That is what makes them the easy answer when you are hosting visitors from overseas, or buying for a household here that wants the Australian thing on the table: the tin says where it came from before the biscuit does.

Where can I buy Valley Produce Company shortbread online?

The full Valley Produce Company range sits on one page here at The Gourmet Pantry, sweet and savoury together, posted anywhere in Australia from our warehouse in Corio just outside Geelong. Orders placed before 12pm on a weekday are dispatched the same day from that warehouse, tracked with Australia Post, and shipping is free once an order passes $100.

Start with a bag and let it decide the rest. VPC Shortbread Ginger at $7.95 tells you whether the same shortbread is worth $12.95 in a tube or $19.95 in a tin, and it costs less than the wrapping on most gifts. When the present needs to be bigger than a biscuit, our Christmas hampers are hand-packed by our team in Corio.