Masterfoods to sell white Maltesers

Masterfoods is moving into the white chocolate market for the first time with the launch of white chocolate Maltesers, in an attempt to counter the imminent arrival of Nestlé Rowntree’s Kit Kat Kubes in the bite-size market.

White chocolate Maltesers will be launched in September and will be in stores for the winter season.

Maltesers are aimed at the young adult market and have been positioned as a brand that is “ideal for sharing”, with an emphasis on being a “light” chocolate, which has traditionally made them more attractive to women. The white chocolate variant will strengthen the trend of taking white chocolate out of the children’s market. It follows last year’s launches of Cadbury’s Dream, a white chocolate bar, and Nestlé’s Milky Bar Munchies.

An industry insider says the launch is part of a plan to increase brand awareness of Maltesers as the market leader in bite-size products. A heavyweight marketing campaign is expected to support the launch.

The company invests heavily in advertising the brand and spent £6.5m on it last year. Last summer, it moved the creative advertising account out of D’Arcy and into Abbott Mead Vickers.BBDO.

In March last year, Masterfoods launched Maltesers Ice Cream, which is available as three balls of vanilla ice cream on a stick, filled with chunks of Maltesers and coated in chocolate.