Wacky Snacks: Nestlé Yorkie

Edwin Goei

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Name: Nestlé Yorkie

Origin: U.K.

Found at: Cost Plus, Santa Ana

Cost: $1.49

Ingredients:

Sugar, Dried whole milk, Cocoa butter, Cocoa mass, Vegetable fat, Lactose and proteins from whey, Whey Powder, Emulsifiers (Soya lecithin, E476), Butterfat, May contains traces of wheat gluten.

Edwin Goei

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Why I Bought It:
When I saw this at Cost Plus, I immediately imagined Gloria Allred foaming at the mouth, calling for boycotts, picket signs, and rallies.

A little research on the Yorkie bar and it's, well, unusual marketing strategy, finds that this candy bar is already no stranger to controversy. Understandably, a few essays and commentaries were written. This one in particular sums it up nicely.

Is it just a classic case of reverse psychology--tell half of the population they can't have your product, and they'll want it? Or is it just plain tasteless? You be the judge.

When the campaign hit around 2002, it featured the commercial I've linked below.

In 2006, in an attempt to even things out, Yorkie reportedly created a chocolate bar made just for girls. Of course, it was packed in a pink wrapper. I'm not sure if even that can make up for their logo: the international woman symbol (this time clutching a purse) with a red strikeout as the "O" in "Yorkie".

If it proves anything, it's that those folks at Nestlé got balls.

Tasting Notes:
There's not much to say about the chocolate. They taste just like any other chocolate bar, though it was surprisingly, and overwhelmingly sweet. So sweet, in fact, that with one taste my female chocolate taste-tester didn't want any more. Being that I'm not much of a chocolate fiend to begin with, neither did I. So that left us with this quandary: If she didn't want it, and I didn't want it, who's it really for?

Just a thought: Maybe they should change the Yorkie slogan to "It's Not For Dogs", with a strike-out of an actual Yorkie. No one could argue with that.