Where to Buy British Smarties in the USA

Quick answer: British Smarties are Nestle milk chocolate beans in a coloured shell. American Smarties are tart compressed sugar tablets made by a completely different company. Same name, unrelated products. Buy the British bag from The British Vault, shipped from Britain with duties included.

Key facts at a glance

• Product: Smarties Milk Chocolate Sharing Bag, 105g.
• Nestle milk chocolate beans in a thin coloured sugar shell.
• Shipped from Britain, Delivered Duty Paid. First order: use NEW10 for 10% off.

Buy Smarties 105g. The classic format is the tube multipack, and both sit in Chocolate, Sweets, Mints & Chewing Gum.

The name collision, explained properly

This is the widest gap between two products sharing a name anywhere in the British grocery aisle, and it is worth stating plainly because the confusion is total.

British Smarties are made by Nestle. They are lentil-shaped milk chocolate beans in a thin, crisp, brightly coloured sugar shell. They are a chocolate sweet, and they have been a British childhood fixture since the 1930s.

American Smarties are made by an entirely separate American company. They are small discs of tart compressed sugar, sold in a paper-wrapped roll, and they contain no chocolate whatsoever. The same product is sold as Rockets in Canada, precisely because the Smarties name was already claimed there by the chocolate.

The practical consequence: if you tell an American you love Smarties, you are not talking about the same thing. And if you send British Smarties to someone in the States, it is worth saying what is in the bag.

How they compare to American chocolate beans

The obvious American comparison for the British product is a shell-coated chocolate bean, and the comparison half works. The shell on a Smartie is thinner and more brittle, and the chocolate inside is Nestle's British milk chocolate, which is softer and less sweet than most American equivalents.

The colours are also part of the product in a way that sounds trivial and is not. Nestle moved Smarties to natural colourings, which changed the shade of some of the shells, and British shoppers noticed immediately.

The tube, and the lid

The cardboard tube is the older and more nostalgic format. British children spent decades collecting the plastic lids, which had letters embossed on the inside. The tubes are now made without plastic, which is a small thing that British customers have strong opinions about.

The 105g sharing bag is the modern everyday format and the more sensible import per gram.

Where to buy British Smarties in the USA

Order from The British Vault. We source Nestle UK in the UK and ship straight to the United States, Delivered Duty Paid, so every import duty and tax is already in the price and nothing is charged on delivery. Orders dispatch within 1–2 business days and usually arrive 1–3 business days after that.

Shipping is a flat $39.99 below $99 and free above it, so most people build a proper sweet run from Chocolate, Sweets, Mints & Chewing Gum or the Food Cupboard. First order: NEW10 for 10% off.

Frequently asked questions

Are British and American Smarties the same?

No, and they are not even similar. British Smarties are Nestle chocolate beans. American Smarties are tart sugar tablets from a different company, with no chocolate in them.

What are American Smarties called elsewhere?

Rockets in Canada, because the Smarties name was already used there by the chocolate product.

What is the difference between the tube and the bag?

The tube is the traditional format and the nostalgic one. The bag is larger and better value per gram.

Will it melt on the way?

It can, in warm weather. We do not ship chocolate with temperature-controlled packaging, because the ice packs we tested caused condensation that damaged both the chocolate and the rest of the parcel. We cannot replace items affected by heat in transit, so check your local temperature before ordering in summer.

Add Smarties to a UK haul

Shop Smarties 105g from The British Vault and build the order past $99 for free shipping.

Related reading: Nestle and Mars in Britain and British sweets in the USA.