Starbucks Mini Waffles

Starbucks Mini Waffles cost £4.70 a bag. The bag carries 787 calories with 51g of sugar and 1.33g of salt, and that figure covers all five servings rather than one waffle.

The serving size is the thing to understand before anything else on this page. Starbucks lists this product as one bag containing five servings, so 787 calories works out at roughly 157 a waffle and around 10g of sugar. That is a modest snack. The bag figure is the largest single number anywhere on the Starbucks UK menu, and quoting it as though it were one item would be badly misleading.

Per bag the numbers are genuinely large. 51g of sugar is more than the Victoria sponge at 49g, 21g of saturated fat exceeds a full adult daily reference intake, and 1.33g of salt is a fifth of the daily maximum. A bag finished in one sitting is a substantial thing to have eaten.

Stroopwafel style caramel waffles are built to be eaten slowly and that is part of the design. The traditional method is to rest one on top of a hot drink for a minute so the caramel between the layers softens, which turns a firm biscuit into something chewy. Nothing about the product works against being rationed.

Value is where the bag earns its place. At £4.70 for five it is comfortably cheaper per waffle than the Large Caramel Waffle sold singly, which is the standard economics of a multipack and unusual on a Starbucks counter.

Multipacks sit oddly on a coffee shop counter and this is one of the few Starbucks sells. It is bought to take home rather than to eat with a drink, which is a different transaction from everything else in the case, and the price per waffle reflects that.

It carries a vegetarian label and declares soya, wheat and milk. Prices reach £6.05 on delivery, the widest spread in the category. The cookie straw is the smallest sweet thing here at 90 calories.