Mini Babybel () is a brand of small snack

cheese Cheese is a dairy product produced in wide ranges of flavors, textures, and forms by coagulation of the milk protein casein. It comprises proteins and fat from milk, usually the milk of cows, buffalo, goats, or sheep. During production, ...

products that are individually packaged and available in various flavours. It is a product of Le Groupe Bel (), a company with roots in the Jura region of

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, started by

Jules Bel Jules Bel (30 September 1842 – 11 January 1904) was a French cheese maker. He was the founder of Groupe Bel The Bel Group (a.k.a. Groupe Bel or Fromageries Bel in French) is a multinational cheese marketer centered in France. Overview The B ...

in 1865. Half of the global production of Mini Babybel is made in Évron, a commune in the northwest of France. Babybel WikiCheese 04 Lokal K

In the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Le Groupe Bel produces the Mini Babybel cheeses in

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

. In March 2016, Bel Brands USA opened a new plant in

Brookings, South Dakota Brookings is a city in Brookings County, South Dakota, Brookings County, South Dakota, United States. Brookings is South Dakota's List of cities in South Dakota, fourth largest city, with a population of 23,377 at the 2020 United States census, 20 ...

. At the time, Bel Brands projected that its 250 employees would produce 1.5 million Mini Babybel cheese wheels a day. In July 2018, announced that the company had 12,700 employees in 30 subsidiaries around the world and that their first Canadian office would be in

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

Product

Mini Babybel is known for its packaging, consisting of a netted bag in which each piece of cheese is encased in a blend of coloured

paraffin Paraffin may refer to: Substances * Paraffin wax, a white or colorless soft solid that is used as a lubricant and for other applications * Liquid paraffin (drug), a very highly refined mineral oil used in cosmetics and for medical purposes * Alkane ...

and

microcrystalline A microcrystalline material is a crystallized substance or rock that contains small crystals visible only through microscopic examination. There is little agreement on the range of crystal sizes that should be regarded as microcrystalline, but the ...

wax. Numerous flavors of Mini Babybel are offered across the world. Mmbover cheesedisk

Flavours (with corresponding wrapping colours)

Products

* Babybel Maxi – Edam Only (FR) * Babybel Tranches – Edam Only (FR, BE)

Mini Babybel

* Mini Babybel (BE, CA, DE, ES, EE, FI, FR, GR, IE, IT, NL, PL, PT, UK, US, SK) * Mini Babybel Mini Roulés/Enrollados/Mini Rolls – Edam only (FR, ES, IT) * Mini Babybel Cheese & Crackers – Edam, Edam Light and White Cheddar (US, GR, PT)

Advertising

An advertising jingle associated with the product plays on the lyrics of the song " Barbara Ann" by The Regents. Use of said jingle started in

in the end of the 1970s, and then emerged to other parts of

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

and French-Canada by the start of the 1990s. They tout the product as an "always on the go and ready for anything" snack cheese. The advertising for Babybel in the UK in the late 1990s and early 2000s had the slogan "Too tasty to share". As of 2012, a recording of the song "Get in Line" by I'm from Barcelona has been used in their adverts, where the band rerecorded the song with a children's choir. In August 2012, there was controversy over its promotional use of the French slogan "Des vacances de malade mental" ("having a mental holiday", or literally "holidaying like a mentally ill person") which was deemed offensive to people with learning difficulties or mental illnesses.

References

External links

{{Commons category, * Babybel websites
FranceUnited KingdomNetherlandsCanadaUnited States

Groupe Bel official website
French cheeses Cow's-milk cheeses Products introduced in 1952 Brand name dairy products