The runaway success of KitKat Chunky has helped Britain's favourite chocolate bar break through a major commercial barrier.

York confectioners Nestl Rowntree revealed today that total sales of KitKat were worth a quarter of a billion pounds last year - up by £40 million on 1998.

And Nestl says in Sweet Facts, the firm's annual review of the confectionery market, that the milestone was reached largely because of its launch in April of the Chunky bar version.

Two hundred million Chunkys have already been sold - equivalent to four for every man, woman and child in Britain.

Managing director Alastair Sykes says Chunky is Nestl Rowntree's most successful launch of the 90s.

"The unprecedented scale of the bar's popularity even took us by surprise and I thank all our trade customers for bearing with us while supply caught up with demand."

He said KitKat, which overtook Mars bar in 1985, remained the top selling confectionery brand throughout the nineties.

He said Mini Smarties and Rolo Cookies were other examples in 1999 of "back-to-the-future" variants which proved it was still possible to innovate with major brands from the first half of the 20th century, combining novelty with familiarity. "We have much to thank our forebears for."

The report says that the total UK confectionery market was worth £5.5 billion in 1999, more than was spent on tea, newspapers and bread put together.

Nestl enjoyed a 19 per cent share of the confectionery market, equal to Cadbury and two per cent ahead of the third giant confectioners Mars. York's other chocolate manufacturer Terry's Suchard had two per cent of the market.

The report also reveals that Nestl's York factory makes more than 100,000 tonnes of chocolate every year, using 300,000 pints of milk and 345,000 sacks of cocoa beans.

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