 | ||
Yorkie is a chocolate bar made by Nestlé. It was originally made by Rowntree's of York, England hence the name.
Contents
History
In 1976, Eric Nicoli of Rowntree's spotted a gap in the confectionery market and used the cocoa from Rowntree's favourable futures market position to launch Yorkie. Production was at York and Norwich (until 1994).
The Yorkie bar, a chunkier alternative to Cadbury's Dairy Milk, was aimed at men. In the 1980s for example, toy lorries with the Yorkie bar logo were manufactured by Corgi, and television advertisements for the Yorkie bar featured truck drivers. In 2001, the advertisement campaign made this more explicit with the slogan and wrapper tagline It's not for girls!, which caused controversy. Special versions for use in Ministry of Defence ration packs read It's not for civvies. In 2006 a special edition that was for girls was sold, wrapped in pink. Aside from the original milk chocolate bar, several variants are available, such as "raisin and biscuit" flavour, "honeycomb" flavour, and Yorkie Ice Cream.
In 2011, standard Yorkie bars became available in 3 packs and the 'It's Not for Girls!' slogan was dropped around that time, however it is still occasionally used.
For a time, trains arriving at York railway station would pass a billboard which read "Welcome to" and then a picture of a Yorkie bar, with the end bitten off, so it read "Welcome to York" (and beneath it, the slogan "Where the men are hunky and the chocolate's chunky").
Size changes
Yorkie bars were originally composed of six chunks of chocolate each marked Rowntree; they were wrapped in both foil and an outer paper wrapper and weighed 2oz or 58g. The wrapping was later switched to a single plastic foil wrapper. More recently, in an effort to reduce costs, the number of chunks has been reduced to five with "Yorkie" moulded into each chunk. The weight of the bar has varied over the years. In 2002, Yorkie bars were 70 grams. This had been reduced to 64.5 grams by 2010, and was reduced further to 61 grams in 2011 and then 55 grams later that year. It was shrunk again in November 2014 to 46g. In January 2015, UK, Raisin & Biscuit Yorkies are now 44g. Limited edition Yorkie Peanut was 43g. Yorkie King size bars have also reduced in size.
Flavours
Other information
Yorkie sponsored the Stealth roller coaster at Thorpe Park.
The title to the Pet Shop Boys song "The Truck Driver And His Mate" - b-side to the single "Before" - was inspired by the Yorkie Bar's catchphrase.