Last Updated on March 17, 2026 by Brian Kachejian
Feature Photo: Nancy Salmon / Shutterstock.com
Our Top Canadian Candies and Chocolate Bars article is designed to guide anyone looking to experience the incredible taste of Canadian sweets. Among chocoholics, instead of dreaming about some magical genie, they dream about candy bars that always deliver. While Americans have their favorites, Canadians have their own lineup of classics. I should know, because I happen to be Canadian.
Some of the world’s most well-known chocolate bars are made differently depending on where you buy them. The same applies to a variety of candies and even soft drinks. In Canada, most sweets are made with sugar, while in the United States, they are often made with corn syrup. That difference alone can completely change the taste.
I learned this firsthand in 1996 while traveling by bus from Calgary, Alberta, to Minneapolis, Minnesota. As soon as we crossed into the United States, a group of us rushed off the bus and headed straight for the vending machines. I grabbed a Pepsi and a KitKat. One bite into the KitKat and I immediately tasted the difference. Then I took a sip of the Pepsi and almost spit it out. I was not expecting that kind of change.
Speaking as a proud Canadian, here are some of the best candies and chocolate bars my country has to offer. Narrowing it down to ten was not easy, so we pushed it to twelve.
# 12 – Mackintosh’s Toffee
#11 – Bounty
Inside their chocolate coating, Bounty chocolate bars are loaded with sweet coconut. Currently manufactured by Mars, Bounty was introduced in 1951 in Canada and the United Kingdom. Until the mid-1990s, this was also available in the US. For chocoholics, the coconut’s sweetness offers a perfect flavor combination that keeps them coming back for more.
#10 – Eat-More
As a name, Eat-More earned this after a resident in Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton Island won a contest held by the Canadian-based company, Lowney Company. Already a popular product by the late 1920s, it did not receive an official name until 1930. The original Canadian recipe calls for chocolate, dark toffee, and peanuts as the core ingredients. In 1987, Hershey Canada purchased Lowney and, in 1995, made the mistake of attempting to replace the dark toffee with caramel as a flavor alternative. This met with disapproval, and Hershey quickly reverted to the original recipe and has stuck with it ever since.
There are still alternate versions of Eat-More, but nothing beats the original recipe of this Canadian classic. Knowing this candy bar as well as I do, my fondest memory of it was actually a classic commercial I watched for the first time in 1983. It was enough for me to try Eat-More for the first time. If you’re looking to rush through a candy bar, Eat-More is not it. It’s designed as a slow chewing experience, not a fast one.
#9 – Aero
Made from solid chocolate, Aero is a Nestle product produced at its chocolate factory in Toronto, Canada. It’s thick but also lights at the same time, thanks to the bubbles that stretch across the full length of this bar. For chocoholics, this is the closest thing to heaven it gets. The highlight of this candy bar is the bubbles that stretch across the entire length of this milk chocolate dream. Obey the commercials that suggest that after popping a bite in your mouth, you should let the bubbles melt. Trust me, it’s worth it! Also from Nestle is a thicker version of this chocolate bar known as Mirage. However, Aero wins as a major fan favorite because it’s so wonderfully light as a candy product. This is a great chocolate bar for people with a sweet tooth who want to keep it simple.
#8 – Maltesers
Deemed “energy balls,” Maltesers’ marketing campaign once focused on women watching their figure. Maltesers have become a Canadian classic, as have some of their televised commercials. In 2002, a boyfriend impressed his girlfriend by feeding her a Malteser with a straw. In 2003, a pregnant woman and her friend were entertained by a Malteser that danced off her stomach.
#7 – Crispy Crunch
At 14 years old, Harold Oswin won a Canadian contest held by Neilson. That win allowed him to create a chocolate bar known as Crispy Crunch, which was first made available to Canadian consumers in 1930. This is one of Canada’s oldest chocolate bars. It also remains on top as a Canadian favorite. Fans of Butterfinger may find a similarity between it and Canada’s Crispy Crunch. For a brief time in the 1990s, Pro Set sold Crispy Crunch until the company itself went bankrupt. Nobody in the US continued production, despite the fact that this was a popular brand at the time. Crispy Crunch is sold only in Canada and a handful of European nations. Among Canadians, this is a chocolate favorite over the infamous Butterfinger.
#6 – Mr. Big
In size, Mr. Big is the largest chocolate bar coming from Cadbury’s factory in Canada. A Mr. Big is about twice as big as a regular candy bar, with a measurement of eight inches long. What makes this chocolate-coated treat so special is the layers of vanilla wafer inside, featuring a mix of caramel, peanuts, and Rice Krispies. This was the candy bar Shaquille O’Neal promoted in 1995. Originally owned by Nestle and licensed by William Neilson. Neilson belonged to Cadbury, which eventually bought Mr. Big as a brand. Since the 1960s, Mr. Big’s presence in Canada has been as huge as the bar itself. It’s also rather popular among the European locations that carry it. There are a few stores in the United States that also sell these candy bars.
#5 – Smarties
From York, England, Rowntree introduced a product known as Smarties. They were made as candy-coated chocolates that looked like rounded beans. They were actually called this back in 1882, before it was forced to change, as this was a chocolate product that had nothing to do with beans. When this came to Canada in 1937, Smarties had candied outer shells thicker than those produced in the UK. Since Nestle’s acquisition of Rowntree in 1988, Smarties have been made in its chocolate factory in Toronto, Ontario.
Inside a box of Smarties is a colorful collection of candy-coated chocolate bites that seem to be incredibly fun to eat. Once upon a time, there was a famous Canadian advertising campaign that asked consumers whether they saved the red Smarties for last as they ate this popular candy. My answer to that one was no. I saved the blue ones for last. In the 1990s, my idea of rebelling against the ad was to eat the red ones first.
#4 – Wunderbar
Personally, Wunderbar is my ultimate go-to. I buy this one more often than any other kind. Aside from vividly remembering an old television commercial that reminded me of “Rock You” from Helix, what I found awesome about this chocolate bar was the wonderful combination of caramel, peanut butter, and rice crisps. All of this is luxuriously coated with Cadbury’s chocolate from its Canadian factory in Toronto, Ontario. Even Danial Tovrov of the International Business Times commented that Wunderbar was “the greatest candy bar ever created.” As far as he was concerned, it was a good reason to come to Canada. As a fan of this product myself, I find it sells out faster than most other chocolate bars in Canadian convenience stores.
There is one gas station I frequent on my commute between home and work that often runs out of this product. In a way, I suppose that’s a good thing because I like it so much that if it’s not there, I sometimes refrain from buying anything else in the form of a chocolate bar. Again, that’s only sometimes. In the United States, a variant of Wunderbar is called Starbar.
#3 – Big Turk
When a friend from Queens, USA, visited me for the first time in 1989, I introduced him to a Big Turk chocolate bar. He bought a whole box of this chocolatey treat to bring back with him. When I picked him up from the airport in 1992, after he had returned to Canada, he had already carried out his Big Turk raid at its convenience store. He also admitted that at that time, he would have bought more than a handful of them if the people in front of him didn’t do the same. They were all Americans. Before he went back to the US, he bought two boxes to bring back. He even mailed three more boxes to himself. Even today, Big Turk sells out faster than most other candy bars sold by Canadian retailers.
#2 – Caramilk
In 1968, there was a certain Englishman who lived in Canada. He created an incredible candy bar with a mysterious recipe whose interior was loaded with creamy caramel. Since then, Cadbury’s Caramilk quickly became one of the nation’s most popular chocolate bars. For years, it ran standout advertising campaigns, promoting the “Caramel Secret” as chocolatiers tried to perfect the formula that kept the golden caramel inside the solid chocolate shell. It remains a guarded secret at the Gladstone Chocolate Factory in Toronto, Ontario. Now a global favorite, Caramilk has earned its place as one of the first choices consumers reach for when craving something sweet.
#1 – Coffee Crisp
In 1938, Canadians were introduced to layers of chocolatey goodness in the form of a chocolate bar known today as Coffee Crisp. Originally, this came from the UK as Rowntree’s Wafers Crisp. The combination of chocolate, coffee, and vanilla is layered beautifully, then coated in milky chocolate. At one point, there were fruity variants, but the coffee-flavored Coffee Crisp reigned supreme. As of 1988, Nestle obtained the rights to the infamous Coffee Crisp from Rowntree and has it mass-produced at its chocolate factory in Toronto, Ontario.
In 2006, Nestle responded to a U.S. petition to bring Coffee Crisp to American consumers. Three years later, Nestle’s decision to limit the availability of Coffee Crisp now has only the closest American communities to the Canadian border carrying the product. On a personal note, Coffee Crisp is one of my favorites as well. I like the fact that it’s sweet but not overdone. This chocolate bar has an addictive personality and a loyal following that won’t touch any other candy bar. I’m not one of those, but my father was among many Coffee Crisp fans who felt no other bar deserved such loyalty.
