Barker's Fruit For Cheese - Feijoa & Pear product reviews

First off, I am not a feijoa fan. I think it is important that for those of us who find feijoa a strong and unusual taste to mention this upfront so if you are a fan you may feel differently. As a long-time Barkers fan I thought if anyone could make this work it would be them and they did. This was a great product and proved very popular with visitors, family and guests.

I thought the volume was appropriate and the value is a good mix of indicating quality and being affordable occasionally. The lid was easy close and open and the seal peeled back simply to make it clear it was open. The consistency was perfect for spreading and it worked well. It is probably a bit expensive for everyday use but I don't think that is the right use either as its pretty rich in flavour.

I tried it with a range of cheeses and yet again the recommendations are pretty spot on. The best mix for me was a pretty ordinary camembert that it perked up and added a great sweet zing and texture to. The pear was a bit hard for me to find in the taste but it proved the slightly grainy texture (along with the feijoa) which seemed to appeal to those who don't like a "jelly" paste. We found the mix of the brandy and blackcurrant and the feijoa and pear worked well to suit a wide range of cheeses and tastes on a platter.

Fruity pastes with cheese is a personal preference and I have to admit this worked best when we left a platter with a pile of unmade crackers and cheeses and stuck the tub out so people could make their own. It was a hit with the feijoa fans and the adventurous eaters who liked the move to a new taste. I will be buying this again just for the novelty and especially for overseas guests to try. A great addition to the Barkers range and a nice way to enjoy feijoa out of season.

OMG divine! We had to go to an upmarket celebration so I put together a nibble platter to take a long, for people to graze on. I had not tried this before and I can tell you now that it didn't last long. We served it with a variety of crackers, including some handmade almond ones and home made oatcakes. There were cheeses, grapes, olives, sundried tomatoes, stuffed peppers and dips. Pairing the feijoa and pear fruit for cheese with cheese such as feta and brie was delicious.

The sweet tang was delicious with the creamy saltiness of the cheese. Safe to say all those cheeses and the fruit for cheese didn't lasts long. It would also be nice on gourmet sandwiches/sliders with cheese and deli meats, dolloped onto salads with feta and salmon or in my daughters case, straight out of the jar. Yes, we had to buy more. We use it for platter dinners which we frequently have over the warmer months. It is versatile and something we will definitely buy again and again to have on hand for when we have to whip up something quickly or go to unplanned events, alongside casual dinners at home when life gets busy.

Cheese is most definitely a downfall of mine... so when I noticed this product available for review; my mind automatically started ticking! You see I come from a generation of cheese lovers; my mum loves cheese and my mum's mum loves cheese too. This means that when family events roll around... well, there is quite simply always cheese! To go along with this, I come from a family of cooks (baked goods, preserves - you name it they make it) and while I do love cooking, my skills probably aren't as great as my mum's or her mum's. Needless to say however I've often been the recipient of said goods and so the tradition of quince jelly with cheese has been one that's been around for a long time in our family.

When I opened my review package I was most impressed with the Barkers fruit for cheese packaging and thought that the company has done it again with a stylish yet simple design that is bound to stand out on supermarket shelves. Since then I visited the supermarket and noticed the product on an end shelf from a far distance - which made me look closer at the price once up close which I liked a lot too! When I took the lid off, I was greeted with a foil lid, that was keeping the contents completely sealed (consequently this product has a good shelf/fridge life too)... Once opened, I was able to twist and lock the hard plastic lid back on to re-seal. I tipped this product upside down and gave it a shake - it still stayed sealed yay!

My first taste of this product was a sneaky dip of my finger into it, quite simply because I had to taste immediately the simply delish scent of feijoa that hit me the moment I opened the foil lid. I was definitely not disappointed at all. AMAZING TASTE Don't get me wrong, I could taste the pear as well, and the combination works perfectly together. But for me, the standout performer is without a doubt our beautiful feijoa. Barkers has done the perfect job of showcasing our beautiful fruit. On this occasion I very quickly got the cheese and crackers out ~ proceeding to eat enough until I felt almost sick haha. The next night I cooked roast chicken for dinner with cauliflower mash... my mum's words were in my head when I spotted this in the fridge while getting my drink for with dinner 'chutney is always nice with chicken'. Why not I decided - that is a choice I'll never regret as this fruit for cheese was the perfect match for with chicken too! I'll be doing that again without a doubt.

Lastly; I took this product with me with a selection of cheeses for a shared lunch at work; this meant that eight other people tried the product apart from my husband and I... all of them also enjoyed this product and were surprised as they hadn't seen it in the supermarket yet. Hands down another top quality product from Barkers that will be joining my fridge on a regularly occasion thank you!

We are a family of cheese lovers. My daughter, who is three, will often request cheese and crackers as a snack, and my hubby is always raiding the speciality cheese section at our local supermarket. But despite this, I was still not really sure what to expect from a product described as 'fruit for cheese'. However, I decided that as we eat so much cheese, we were exactly the type of people who should be trying this product out for KIWIreviews, and that the feijoa and pear combination sounded like the perfect place to start.

The product itself is packaged up nicely in a little tub. The packet suggests that it is best enjoyed with soft cheeses, so that is exactly where we started. I have to admit to being a little surprised at the texture. I expected more of a jelly or a harder paste, but this is like a softly-set jam, and spoons out easily and cleanly onto a plate. The combination of pear and feijoa is a match made in heaven. I'm not quite sure how they have done it, but the pear isn't overpowered by the feijoa so both get a chance to shine. The texture is melt in the mouth, so you don't notice it at first, but the burst of fruit and sweetness to accompany the soft cheese and crunchy cracker works perfectly. It definitely pairs best with milder cheeses, the flavour was slightly overpowered by the rather ripe blue which we had in the fridge, but we tried it alongside mild soft and harder cheeses and it worked in each instance. I would say that as it was so mild, most people will like it, so it's sure to be a crowd pleaser. It would be perfect added to a sharing platter for groups of friends or family. I was also pleasantly surprised at how far it went as you only need a little on each cracker.

I was also able to find uses for it outside of cheese and crackers. It works well as a little sweetener added to a morning bowl of porridge (a little taste of autumn in the middle of winter), it is delicious mixed through creme fraiche and then added to fruit for a quick dessert, and makes a great jam alternative if you are bored of your usual spread.

I really didn't know what to expect from this product, but was very pleasantly surprised. Perfect for cheese-lovers, platter-preparers or just people wanting a multi-functional product to have on hand. Give it a try as you will not be disappointed.

Out of the three flavours I had to try out, Feijoa and Pear was the one that I felt would be the safe bet. Both flavours that I like with a similar texture, so it was the one I was least worried about. Strangely enough, it ended up being the least exciting of the bunch. Perhaps due to the fact that I had no soft cheeses to pair it with, I tried it with some smoked cheddar but it didn't really appeal too much. It actually ended up working better on toast on its own as a type of smooth jam preserve.

The packaging is very high quality. Easy to open and seal shut, easy to stack, and has a foil top inside that's easy enough to open and keeps the product fresh for longer. The consistency of the product is really smooth but still has a level of cohesiveness to it which is the perfect balance of easy to get out of the tub and still easy to spread.

The flavour itself was not very strong which did surprise me. Feijoa is quite renowned for its unique flavour that is both sweet and sharp and always stands out in the crowd, but it seems that the pear has completely disabled the strength of flavour of the feijoa. I would really be more likely to use this in a fruit pie, but then again, it may just need some soft cheeses. Perhaps if I had some camembert or brie, then I would have had a greater appreciation for it.

I was a little bit hesitant to request this product, but I decided that the point of being part of KIWIreviews is to try new products and step out of my comfort zone sometimes! In recent times I haven't been much a fan of feijoa - to be fair, I probably only tried my first feijoa two years ago when visiting my Dad in Christchurch. He has a feijoa tree and it grows a lot of fruit, and I managed to wrangle one from my feijoa loving nephews to give a go. I didn't really enjoy it, but I'm actually starting to think it's because of the texture rather than the taste, as I have tried a few feijoa products lately and I have enjoyed them.

I am a big fan of crackers and cheese, and a nice relish or chutney can absolutely make it. Upon reading the container it suggested that this feijoa and pear fruit for cheese was best matched with soft cheeses such as ricotta and brie however unfortunately I had neither! But I decided to give it a go with what I had - a simple block of mild cheddar cheese. I spread a little bit of the fruit for cheese on the crackers before topping with a slice of cheese. Smelling the product there was a definite smell of feijoa, and a definite sweetness from the pear. However, when I tried it I realised that the feijoa flavour was very weak, which didn't bother me too much at all. There was a nice sweetness from the pear that matched perfectly with a nice plain cracker and the nice mild cheddar cheese. Trying to imagine the product with some brie, I actually think I would prefer this just as I was having it.

I took the fruit for cheese to work as a number of my workmates are fans of cheese and crackers, and my boss, in particular, LOVES feijoa. Three other people tried the feijoa and pear fruit for cheese and the consensus from everyone was the same - it was really yummy, had a nice amount of sweetness without being too sickly sweet, and that the feijoa flavour was only subtle. One of them doesn't like feijoa at all but enjoyed this product, and my boss who loves feijoa went and ordered her own tub in her online groceries that night! The other thing we did all agree on is that the price does seem a little bit steep for the size of pottle, however we all said that for a treat or on a special occasion we would splash out for this product.

I really had no idea what to expect but was interested in giving it a go as new things to eat are always welcome. It is a good size bottle with some good information on it. I cut up some cheese and got some crackers and then called the family to try this product. The boys both said they don't like it but couldn't give me a firm reason, my daughter said it was ok but she didn't seem to really enjoy it. I didn't like it at all, I found that it was too sweet and I since I have a sweet tooth I was really surprised that I'm not a fan of the taste.

I did think upon opening the bottle that the texture reminded me of puree baby food and the smell was also a lot like baby food. My dad was about the only one who said that the fruit wasn't too bad, he just dipped a tiny bit onto a cracker and said that it did improve the taste of the cracker.

I know that there are worse things I could be eating but this didn't make that big an impression due to the texture issues (I do prefer that my food not be too much like baby food) and how sweet it is. When checking the ingredients I was expecting sugar to be high on the list but fruit is listed first. Since this wasn't a hit with the family it is not going to be making an appearance in my shopping trolley.

I usually have cheese on crackers as a snack at work but normally I top it with different types of hot sauces so I thought to give the Barker's of Geraldine fruit for cheese a try for something different and although I thought at first that the concept of fruit on cheese was a little weird I am very glad to have ventured out to give it a whirl. The Fruit for cheese comes in a nifty little 210g container with a twist to remove lid and the pot is see through so you can visually check the contents inside before purchasing and opening. The label on the front of the Feijoa and pear flavored fruit for cheese suggests to match it with soft cheeses such as Brie and ricotta so naturally, I followed this suggestion and purchased a Blue Brie cheese to try it with.

I cut four slices of the cheese, placed them atop crackers and spread the fruit paste over the top to get good even coverage. Before eating the crackers I spooned out a little portion of the fruit paste to try by itself and was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't overly sweet and just held the natural flavor of feijoa and pear. The consistency of the paste is that of a jam and that is probably the best comparison I can give for this paste as it is very much a jam than anything else. I proceeded to eat the cheese on crackers and love the way that the fruit paste blended well giving a nice sweet fruit taste to the creaminess of the cheese and the savory flavor from the crackers.

For me personally, I really did enjoy the fruit for cheese but I think I would only have it every now and then as I do prefer the Hot sauce's on cheese but if your more preferable of eating sweet natural flavors then this will be right up your alley. It has a very nice fruity flavor and is gluten-free,vegan-friendly, has no preservatives and is made right here in New Zeland. I think the price of $6.99 is a reasonable price for the 210g and is on par with similar products.

With so many good shows coming to an end this last week, curling up on the couch with a Cider and Cheese & Wackers are a must. Such a simple treat but yet an extremely yummy snack made even more special when you add a topping to it. These Fruit for Cheese are perfect for such occasions.

My daughter loves Feijoas at the moment and is eating as many as I will let her get away with in a day, but ironically hates any topping on her cheese so I was hoping this would be the solution that I required. It worked as soon as she heard it had Feijoa's in it she could not wait to add to her Cracker. The problem was she started using more topping than anything else.

II am other other way I love Pears and as much as I wanted to love it as much as other members of the family did, I have to admit - it did take me a little while to warm to the taste. It is way sweeter than I expected. It does look like mashed up pears to me but taste more of the Feijoa in my opinion. Now, what really surprised me is my husbands reaction he loves he - seriously he is using it on everything. He made Banana Bread yesterday and is spreading this on his slices instead of using butter. He even used on his sandwich with sliced ham. Between him and my daughter they have practically finished the container in two days which is crazy - realistically it should last a week or so but they love it so much they are practically eating it by the spoonful.

I find the container is great and love that you can twist it easily to close it. Also the fact can see how much is left so I could easily see how much he ate alone last night after I went to bed. I also do love that there are no artificial colors or flavours and its gluten free so doesn't make me to upset that he is eatting so much.

I was lucky to be sent three flavours and in my opinion this was my least favourite which I guess is lucky as I would have to fight the other two in order to get any. I am guessing it will become a regular addition to the shopping basket from now on, although at close to $7 I am going to have to put my foot down on how much they are eatting of it.

Feijoa's... one of my favourite fruits that I patiently wait all year to get my little hands on! Although feijoas are one of my favourite fruits, I also quite like pears so when I see the 'Fruit for Cheese' up for review I knew without a doubt that this is one of the varieties that I really had to try. The thought of feijoas always makes me think about my childhood where each Feijoa season I would venture up to Kaitaia to stay with my grandparents and gather up huge amounts of Feijoas from under there many trees down in the orchard, where I would quite happily sit for the day with a spoon in hand eating these delicious fruits.

When I first opened the pot of Feijoa and Pear I was impressed by the strong scent of Feijoa that came over me and on a quick taste test I was sold, Feijoa was by far the most predominant of the two fruits but you could definitely taste the pear as well. By this stage my Feijoa loving 6 years old had seen me with the pot containing images of Feijoas and she too was wanting to taste it's contents, a huge thumbs up from her and she wanted to finish off the tub with a spoon... sadly for her this wasn't happening as I had many other ideas of my own!

WIth some Brie in the fridge and crackers in the pantry I decided to put the product to the test, adding a generous dollop of fruit to each cracker and then a slice of Brue... yum, Brie was the perfect cheese for this cracker due to it's softness and it went so well with the sweet fruity flavours.

I decided to make some cinnamon doughnuts in my pie maker so after making up the doughnut batter I half filled the pie maker with this and then to each of the doughnuts added a generous spoonful of the feijoa and pear' before adding more batter over top of this. Once cooked I rolled the doughnuts into a mix of cinnamon and sugar, and quickly ate one while it was still warm... oh my gosh these were amazing and the warm sweet tastes of the filling and cinnamon and sugar were to die for the flavours complemented each other so well, and I truly don't think there could be anything better. My partner dislikes Feijoas but I gave him one to try and he even said how nice they were!

The next morning Miss 6 was having some cereal with yoghurt for breakfast and she asked me if she could have some of the fruit for cheese over the top, as odd as it sounded I agreed, and slightly melted a small amount in the microwave for her and then drizzled it over the top for her. She declared it the best breakfast ever, by this stage I was curious as to how it would taste myself so had a little sample, only to find that it actually paris really well with plain yoghurt.

With a small amount of the fruit for cheese left in the pot, I have a couple of ways I would like to try the remainder out (as a cupcake filling and drizzled over pancakes). This product has so many uses other than with cheese, and is another great product by Barkers if your a Feijoa fan you should give it a try for sure!

When I saw these barkers fruit for cheese I was in two minds for this I love fejoia and pear but for cheese seemed strange but I'll give most things a go so went for it. The tub is lovely looking and we'll you twist the lid not pull and get annoyed like I did I was too excited I didn't see the twist arrows on the top with the word twist so many hints not taken.

Once opened you could smell the fejoia even my 9 year old sad man that fejoia smells good he didn't actually know beforehand what it was. We cut up some normal edam cheese and gave it a try. We liked it and kept eating more the kids then asked for a small container of their own with cheese and off they went.

I was really surprised how good it was with cheese and it didn't seem out of place, the fejoia in our opinion was more there than the pear but that worked for us. We tried it with carrot sticks and again was good even with apple slices.

This is Def a lovely addition to a platter or school lunches everyone in our houses liked this and then afterwards we thought about it on crackers with cheese and salami which I'm sure would be great too. Overall this would be brought again for platters, dinner parties and just because we want dome thing different?

I am a huge cheese fan, so seeing these Fruit for Cheese pottles come up for review, I requested them. I am also a HUGE feijoa fan, so was delighted to receive this one. I was very pleased to note that in true Barker's style this is a NZ Made, not too many additives product that I have come to expect from Barker's.

Taking a look at the pot - it is a a lovely looking pot, with nice artwork on it, meaning for something like friends over, or a birthday party you do not need to put it into something else - it looks nice as it is. I like the "locking" lid that you turn to close rather than simply push on - it seems much more secure, as long as everyone actually knows to do that!! I opened up the pot, and removing the lid, found a foil seal also - so this product can remain in the fridge sealed for quite a while. The ingredients list is really good - making sure to tell you everything in it - and it was nice to see the fruit as the major ingredient. It is reasonably high in sugar, but then, you want the sweet to compliment the cheese.

I was a bit peckish when my review box arrived so got out some oat crackers, my camembert cheese and this. I chose to spoon a little onto the top of each cheese and cracker, but you could just as easily spread it underneath the cheese. I liked the look of the fruit paste on top to be honest, so that is my personal display choice! Tasting it, wow - it was really nice!! You can absolutely taste both the pear and the feijoa in it, and it has the same texture as well. Whilst being sweet - together with the cheese it does not taste too sweet - it is a great combination that I will be honest - had never though of feijoa with cheese!

I took this to my daughters birthday party also - and everyone liked it, and said it went well with the creamy cheeses as suggested. I think this could be used in the place of jam, however - if you choose that however, it becomes a very expensive jam!

All in all - really really nice - and definitely full of flavour. I would class this as a treat, as it is a on the pricier side. In saying that, I think it is worth it, as it is a quality, well made fruit paste, with potential to use it for other things too.

I am a big feijoa fan, from harvesting the trees where ever we lived and gorging myself on them as a child to enjoying the range of feijoa fruit juices available, feijoa sorbet and of course, lollies soI knew I needed to try this fruit for cheese. My eight year old wanted to get right into it but she was unable to open it on her own so it came to me but even I struggled with opening it up, the bonus of that though is that once closed again the lid won't pop off in your fridge or if it hits the ground.

Trying it out, you could tell that it has real feijoa in it as it has the same slight grittiness to it that the fruit does which helped to make this feel like an authentic product. I've tried this a couple of times on its own and I could easily tell that it has pear and feijoas in it, however, for the first time for me, this combo just didn't work quite well and I found it left me feeling a bit ick. I didn't let this stop me though and tried it out with a wide range of cheeses but was unable to find one that I thought it paired well with (having tried it with the suggested cheeses and others we had). My nine and eight year olds both enjoyed it and my mother said it had a really nice feijoa taste and found the pear was a nice accompliment to the feijoa.

I wouldn't buy this for myself, but when three out of five enjoy it, this could well end up in our fridge again.

A good place for me to start this review is to say we are feijoa addicts, especially my 7 year old son. having feijoa trees at home, feijoa season is never long enough and can often eat too many so as not to waste them. One of my favourite ways to use feijoas is in a feijoa and pear or feijoa and apple crumble, both are delicious served as a desert and the flavours go so well together. While both fruits are sweet they have different tastes and balance each other very well.

I had never thought of using either of these fruits with cheese although I regular have fruit or even jam with cheese. Now I have I can personally say I think it is a wonderful new way for me to enjoy them and I will certainly buy this again especially when feijoa season is over and i'm craving that taste. It was suggested to use this with cream cheese which I love so I was keen to use it with this however my 7 year old misheard when I read the container out loud and thought I said icecream so had to have it with icecream.

He was very happy with his suggestion and would easily of eaten the whole container this way if I hadn't of stepped in to get at least some of it with cheese. Having this on a mini plain blini with some cream cheese I could see the definite appeal to eat it with cheese so also had it with cream cheese on crackers in the same way. One of my favourite pizza toppings is chicken, cream cheese, and apricot or cranberry sauce so I thought why not try it on pizza and I didn't find it too bad at all while quiet sweet and with that definite feijoa taste I thought it worked just as well in savoury dishes as a cranberry or an apricot sauce.

I was staying with a family who have their own feijoa and pear trees, so they were very keen to try this variety. They sometimes include pears in dishes like Waldorf salad, but had not thought of combining it with cheese. As for feijoas, they have quite a strong flavour on their own and they have long been made into jam and included in fruit salads. And, of course, both fruit are eaten raw in season. Everyone thought having the two together was an interesting combination, and when I brought out the brie I had purchased to accompany it, they could not wait to get started.

Reactions ranged from "Interesting!" (from one of the children) to "Wow, where can I buy this?" from her father. Everyone liked it, and were fascinated to see that I had chosen to serve it on Girl Guide biscuits. These biscuits are delicious served with cheese rather than just dunked in a hot drink, and the texture was perfect to offset the softness of the cheese and the full flavour of the product. Opinions as to the balance of ingredients was varied; some thought the pear taste overwhelmed the feijoa, while others thought the opposite. I could certainly taste both, and noticed particularly that the slightly gritty texture of the pears was apparent.

We also tried some with a slice of pumpernickel, spread with a scraping of cream cheese instead of butter, and then with a small amount of the fruit added on top. I really liked it served this way and would have had another slice but we had managed to finish the whole jar. The pumpernickel has a rich malty flavour which complements the fruit beautifully. However, this combination would be best made fresh and eaten immediately as I can imagine the topping would slide off otherwise; pumpernickel is not porous like bread.

I would use this product sparingly if I were just serving it in place of a jam because it is very sweet indeed - it needs something to counteract that sweetness or it could become too much for some. I don't like a lot of sweet food so combining it with other ingredients tones this aspect down somewhat. There is not a lot of added sugar - most of the sweetness comes from the natural fruit - and there are no artificial ingredients added to boost the flavour.

Pricewise it is competitive; I saw it in their local supermarket featured as an "opening special" so I might get another pot to try other possibilities for it. I think it might be quite nice on a sponge cake with unsweetened whipped cream; it would provide flavour interest and I can see it going down well with the family. So that will be my next experiment!