In 1976, Eric Nicoli of Rowntree's spotted a gap in the confectionery market and used the cocoa from Rowntree's favourable futures market position to launch Yorkie. Production was at York and Norwich. The Yorkie bar, a chunkier alternative to Cadbury's Dairy Milk, was aimed at men. In the 1980s for example, toy lorries with the Yorkie bar logo were manufactured by Corgi, and television advertisements for the Yorkie bar featured lorry drivers. In 2001, the advertisement campaign made this more explicit with the slogan and wrapper tagline It's not for girls!, which caused controversy due to its perceived sexism. Special versions for use in Ministry of Defenceration packs read It's not for civvies. In 2006 a special edition that was for girls was sold, wrapped in pink. Aside from the original milk chocolate bar, several variants are available, such as "raisin and biscuit" flavour, "honeycomb" flavour, and Yorkie Ice Cream. In 2011, standard Yorkie bars became available in 3 packs and the 'It's Not for Girls!' slogan was dropped around that time, however it is still occasionally used. One notable advert for the chocolate bar showed trains arriving at York railway station and passing a billboard which read "Welcome to" followed by a picture of a Yorkie bar, with the end bitten off. Thus the advert appeared to read, "Welcome to York". Beneath was the slogan, "Where the men are hunky and the chocolate's chunky".
Size changes
Yorkie bars were originally composed of six chunks of chocolate each marked Rowntree; they were wrapped in both foil and an outer paper wrapper and weighed. The wrapping was later switched to a single plastic foil wrapper. More recently, in an effort to reduce costs, the number of chunks has been reduced to five with "Yorkie" moulded into each chunk. The weight of the bar has decreased over the years. In 2002, Yorkie bars were. This had been reduced to by 2010, and was reduced further to in 2011 and then later that year. It was shrunk again in November 2014 to. In January 2015, UK, Raisin & Biscuit Yorkies were. Limited edition Yorkie Peanut was. Yorkie King size bars have also reduced in size.
Yorkie sponsored the Stealthroller coaster at Thorpe Park. The title to the Pet Shop Boys song "The Truck-Driver And His Mate" — B-side to the single "Before" — was inspired by a Yorkie Bar advertisement.
