Back in the ‘70s/’80s, Malta had its very own chocolate range, called Desserta (most probably pronounced harshly as ‘dezerta’ knowing us). It had a variety of flavours including semi-sweet, peppermint, lemon, milk and nut, white chocolate and more.

Any Maltese nanna will tell you that once Dom Mintoff was in power, he essentially banned foreign food products – yes, even Cadbury. Madonna NO. It is said that he was trying to establish local manufacturing, giving local companies the chance to enter the market without having the competition of the bigger, international brands. And let’s say Desserta wasn’t very popular among locals.

“Peppermint was ok,” said one local who commented on the above photo shared to Nostalgia Malta. “There wasn’t one that I liked,” another said and “They were nothing wow,” someone said. Others on the other hand, didn’t mind some of the flavours having particularly ones as their favourites.

Can you imagine having chocolate banned in country, though? This lead to many locals smuggling the good stuff (Cadbury, Mars and the lot) into the islands when they travelled.