Sort by
Sort by

Yorkieth Birthday

Do you ever wonder to yourself whose idea it was to launch the Yorkie? And what were the other ideas that were in the running at the same time? Some of our products were created by accident, but according to my records, which I don’t think have been released before, Yorkie was competing against a handful of other chocolate blocks to win the chance to go into production.

Rowntree Mackintosh (who Nestlé bought in the eighties) launched Yorkie in 1976 as a bid to enter the solid chocolate block market. Rowntree’s had been among the market leaders of block chocolate makers back in the roaring Twenties with their York chocolate range, including York Motoring. Advertised by the eponymous Plain Mr York cartoon, the York brand fell out of favour after the Second World War, and the line was dropped in 1966. Rowntree Mackintosh needed a new block, and the artwork below shows you some of the concepts that they were considering:

...see all the images and read the whole story on the blog.