Cadbury plans to launch Christmas confectionery brand

Cadbury is launching a Christmas confectionery brand, called Chunky, which will appear each year in the four month run-up to Christmas.

Cadbury hopes Chunky, a caramel and crispies truffle, will be as successful as its Creme Egg brand, which has achieved a shelf life beyond the Easter season.

Packaging design and advertising plans for the September 1998 launch of Chunky have yet to be finalised.

A Cadbury spokesman denies that Chunky will replace the existing Christmas product, called Cadbury’s Puds.

“Puds are very big just before Christmas in December and Chunky is designed for a longer life,” he adds.

Cadbury will also launch Wicked – a new boxed chocolate brand aimed at teenagers – in time for next Christmas (MW April 2). Product innovations for the festive season include a “Cadbury’s Yard of Chocolate” containing eight bars of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk bars packed end to end.

This Easter sees the end of Cadbury’s contract with the Spice Girls. “We exercised an option to use them for Easter eggs and we are not sure whether we will use them again,” says the Cadbury spokesman.