Would you pay $59 for a 200g chocolate bar? Some Singaporeans don’t mind

SINGAPORE – For months, Mr Mohd Taj kept seeing videos online of people cracking open a chocolate bar, with a bright-green pistachio cream filling oozing out.

Interest piqued, the 41-year-old decided to get the chocolate bar – called Can’t Get Knafeh Of It.

The 200g sweet treat’s hefty price tag – it is sold in Singapore for $59 by retailer The SGFR Store – did not deter him, since it was a “try once” occasion, he said.

The verdict? A thumbs up from Mr Taj, who works in the podcast industry.

“The combination of flavours was unique,” he said. He added that he enjoyed the pairing of soft milky chocolate, which was “not too sweet”, with crunchy bits of kataifi – a crispy pastry used in a Middle Eastern dessert known as knafeh or kunafe.

The chocolate, produced by Dubai-based Fix Dessert Chocolatier, is difficult to get. It is officially sold only in Dubai at 68 dirhams (S$24), and at two time slots – 2 and 5pm – each day.

Fix Dessert Chocolatier was founded in 2021, but the dessert became a global phenomenon only after a February ASMR-style video of TikTok food influencer Maria Vehera eating a bar in her car went viral. It has more than 80 million views and inspired others to film their own reactions.

Videos featuring ASMR – or autonomous sensory meridian response – elements emphasise the auditory details of an act, such as the “crunch” of biting into a chocolate bar, to elicit a sensory experience in the viewer.

As the bars are handmade, there is a limit to how many the Fix team can produce daily, reported CNN, hence its exclusivity.

In Singapore, the nearly 150 per cent mark-up by SGFR is so that the company can still make some profit from sales after taking into account the high cost of bringing it here, said SGFR founder Mohamed Haikkel Firdhaus.

Mr Haikkel, 22, told The Straits Times that the chocolates must be kept cold throughout the import process, which needs to be rushed due to their short shelf life.

By the time they arrive in Singapore, SGFR has about 15 days to clear the chocolates from its shelves, said Mr Haikkel.

Thankfully for him, this has not been a problem so far. Each time SGFR brings in stock, he said, the bars sell out within a week.

Despite the chocolate’s popularity, Mr Haikkel acknowledges that its price is high. And so, he said, SGFR will be bringing in cheaper alternatives, including a $25 version by another Dubai-based company, Chocolate Creations.

Checks by ST found that resellers on online platforms like Facebook and Shopee are selling Fix bars at prices ranging from $40 to $65 a piece.

Responding to ST, the Singapore Food Agency said that online platform sellers are not required to have a licence to sell pre-packaged food products, but must source their products from licensed importers or be licensed importers themselves. Food safety requirements under the Sale of Food Act and Environmental Public Health Act must also be complied with.

Ms Mirah, who gave only her first name and works in the student services industry, purchased a Fix bar for $50 from a reseller on Instagram. She has also tried different versions of the chocolate from other resellers online, for about half the price, but that “nothing has come close to the taste of the original”.

Singapore-made and locally inspired alternatives

Singaporeans unwilling to splash out on Fix bars or take a chance on potentially unreliable resellers can opt for cheaper, locally produced versions inspired by the original.

SGFR, for example, sells its own version of the chocolate, named Kunafe Cwumble Cwunch, at $28 for a 175g bar.

Local bakery Nova Bakehouse, meanwhile, sells its 250g version for $25.

In addition to the viral Pistachio Kunafe flavour, Nova offers local flavours like Caramel Goreng Pisang Kunafe and Musang King Kunafe. It uses feuilletine for the crunch in its creations.

Ms Min Jie Yaw, Nova’s sales and marketing director, said: “We didn’t actually know what Fix bars taste like, but we wanted a crunch that’s familiar to every Singaporean, so we were inspired by Kinder Bueno and KitKat.”

Fitri Creations, a bakery with stores in Kinex mall and Sembawang Crescent, began selling products inspired by Fix bars at the request of customers who saw them on TikTok.

Co-founder Siti Lim said she, too, did not know what Fix chocolates taste like, and relied on descriptions by customers. She sells her versions for $25 for each 220g bar.

Mrs Lim estimated that she now receives more than 100 orders for the chocolates each day, up from the 20 she used to get when she began accepting orders in June.

For another local business, Sweet Tooth Addiction in Joo Chiat, products inspired by the viral Dubai chocolates have been a shot in the arm.

The shop experienced a slump in the first half of 2024, owing to founder Feeza Yusof’s decision to close it for four months following a mild stroke she suffered in October 2023.

In search of a boost to sales with an alternative to the pastas and cakes that she usually sells, Ms Feeza came across videos of Fix chocolates on social media and began experimenting with making her own version.

She opened up orders for the chocolates – which go for $15 for each piece of around 150g – on July 15, and said she received more than 500 messages on WhatsApp in the first 24 hours. She also received a flood of messages on Instagram and Facebook.

But is the dessert’s popularity sustainable? Mr Haikkel is confident that the chocolate bars are more than just a fad, and demand for them will continue as long as there are new varieties and flavours to be explored.

“We believe that the kunafe chocolate bars will become a permanent fixture in the market,” he said, “because they fill a gap that didn’t exist before.”