Kitkat Chunky mania will have to take a break as a chocolate crisis hits York - with shops being rationed and the sweet shelves emptied.

John Smith, manager of Maynews in Parliament Street, York, with a box of Kit Kat Chunky bars Picture: Mike Tipping

The KitKat chunky bar, launched last month, has caused such a storm with chocoholics that staff at the Nestl factory in York are having to do extra shifts to keep on top of demand - but even this is not enough.

Newsagents in the city are running out of the bars within hours of them going on the shelves.

John Smith, the manager at Maynews in Parliament Street, said the shop was being rationed to four boxes a week, and they run out within the day.

"The shelf is always empty - the Chunky bars are like gold dust.

We have even had Americans in who have heard about the new bar and want to take some home with them.

"We haven't had any of the bars all weekend. They are practically extinct because people can't get enough of them."

Janet Hancock, manager at D&M Atherton newsagents in Clifford Street, said: "We have been rationed to two boxes a week since a couple of weeks after the bar was launched. We get the box of 36 at 11am on a Wednesday and I can guarantee by the end of the day we are sold out.

"We have three other shops in York and they are all having the same problem - we could all sell ten times what we get in."

The only shop in York to have a plentiful supply is Woolworths in Coney Street, with a display stand full of KitKat Chunky bars.

Paul Kirkwood, a spokesman for Nestl, said that 54 million Chunky bars had left the factory in York since April 6. He said:

"This bar is the biggest hit of the nineties - we never in our wildest dreams anticipated the popularity. We are having to ration the bars to try to be fair.

"We have had to arrange for staff to do additional shifts because of the huge demand for the new bar, so we are trying to sort the problem out.

"We hope people will bear with us while we try to crank up the volume."

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