Kano pastries and digestives are different types of biscuit: the kano pastries covered here are filled with almond paste, while classic digestives are wheat biscuits without a filling. Choose kano pastries if you want to serve each guest a filled pastry, or digestives if you’d rather offer biscuits with coffee or tea. Whichever you choose, check the packaging for ingredients, allergens and the number of biscuits you need.
If you want to put a sweet pastry on the table for each guest, a kano pastry with almond-paste filling is a different choice from an unfilled biscuit. Jumbo, Albert Heijn and PLUS describe the kano pastries covered here as filled butter pastries.
If you’d rather have a wheat biscuit without almond-paste filling, look for a classic digestive. The Original varieties from Verkade and McVitie’s covered here fall into this category.
If a guest needs to avoid certain ingredients, check the exact packaging before choosing. Allergens relevant to the biscuits covered here include wheat, milk, egg, soya and almond; the specific declarations vary by product.
First decide whether you want to serve filled kano pastries or unfilled biscuits. Then check the packaging to make sure it suits your guests and that you have enough.
| What to consider | What to check when buying | Who it matters to |
|---|---|---|
| Type of biscuit | Read the product description: is it a pastry with almond-paste filling or a wheat biscuit? If you’re buying for a group, check the portion size too. | If you want to offer every guest a filled, sweet pastry, a kano is better suited to the occasion. For around 45% of consumers, choosing a filled pastry comes first. |
| Allergens | Check the ingredients on the packaging for the variety you’ve chosen, along with any declarations of allergens present and warnings about possible traces. | If a guest needs to avoid certain ingredients, you’ll want to know in advance what the biscuit contains or may have come into contact with. Around 33% of consumers put checking allergens first. |
| Packaging and availability | Check the weight, the number of biscuits or portions, and whether your chosen variety is available from your shop. | If you’re buying for several guests, you’ll want enough to go round without having to guess how many are in a pack. The number of portions is the first consideration for around 22% of consumers. |
The kano pastries covered here are butter pastries filled with almond paste; classic digestives are wheat biscuits. So a pack of kano pastries won’t necessarily serve the same purpose alongside coffee or tea.
First decide between a filled pastry for each person and unfilled biscuits. Then compare varieties within your chosen category.
Here, digestive is a product name, not a claim about what the biscuit does for you. Ingredients and nutritional values can vary even between biscuits with the same name.
Compare the nutritional information per 100 g if you’re weighing up different varieties, and focus on the values that matter to you.
A kano pastry and a digestive can contain different allergens; even varieties in the same product range need their own label check.
Check the current packaging for the exact variety you’re buying and, if needed, ask guests in advance which ingredients they need to avoid.
These brands illustrate the two types of biscuit. Always compare the specific variety: a brand name alone tells you nothing about the filling, allergens or pack size.
Jumbo lists both regular and mini kano pastries.
Albert Heijn lists both its own-brand kano pastries and digestives, so you can look at two different types of product.
PLUS lists butter kano pastries with almond-paste filling and an almond decoration.
Lidl describes Sondey Kano's as butter pastries filled with almond paste.
McVitie's Digestives Original is a wheat biscuit, making it a different choice from a kano pastry filled with almond paste.
Verkade Digestive Original is also a wheat biscuit, not a kano pastry.
These three products are all digestives. The Original variety is a biscuit without a chocolate coating; the other two are chocolate varieties. None of these products is a kano pastry filled with almond paste.
Image unavailable
A good choice if you’re looking for a digestive without a chocolate coating to serve at your get-together, rather than a filled kano pastry.
400 g pack. Check the current label for wheat and possible milk declarations, and see how many biscuits the pack contains before serving them to guests.
Image unavailable
A good choice if you want to serve a digestive with dark chocolate; the chocolate coating means this isn’t the plain Original variety.
266 g pack. Check the label for wheat, milk and soya, and see how many biscuits you can serve from the pack.
Image unavailable
A good choice if you’re specifically looking for a digestive with milk chocolate, rather than a plain biscuit or a kano pastry filled with almond paste.
266 g pack. Check the label for milk, soya and wheat declarations, and see how many biscuits the pack contains before serving them to guests.
No. Jumbo and Albert Heijn describe the kano pastries covered here as butter pastries filled with almond paste, while the Original digestives covered here are wheat biscuits. Choose according to what you want to serve: a filled pastry for each guest, or biscuits with coffee or tea.
Compare the nutritional information per 100 g to account for differences in portion size, as recommended by the Netherlands Nutrition Centre. For example, look at sugars, saturated fat, salt and fibre, but bear in mind that a kano pastry and a digestive are still different types of biscuit.
Read the current ingredients and allergen information for the exact variety you’re buying. The biscuits covered here may have different declarations for wheat, milk, egg, soya and almond, among other ingredients, so don’t rely on the product category or brand name alone.
Follow the instructions on the packaging for your biscuits. Albert Heijn recommends storing its opened kano pastries in an airtight tin; for McVitie's Digestives, Jumbo advises keeping them in a cool, dry place.
