NESTLE Rowntree today hailed the success of its first big new chocolate product in five years, Double Cream.

The York-based company says it has sold 2,000 tonnes, worth £20 million, since it was launched in September following a £10 million investment.

That compares to the sale of 11,000 tonnes in the whole of 2002 of the long-established and popular Aero.

Now, Double Cream's popularity has sparked the launch of chilled dessert and chocolate sponge cake version, with even a Double Cream Easter egg set to be brought out in the spring.

"We are really delighted," said director of marketing, Andrew Harrison, who hopes 4,000 tonnes could be sold in the coming year, taking Double Cream into the top 40 of the confectionery sales charts.

The bar, made at Nestl's York factory, is the first milk chocolate bar to be made with double cream and contains no milk powder, whey or milk solid substitutes. It is seen as a challenge to best-selling rivals Cadbury's Dairy Milk and Galaxy.

Meanwhile, Nestl's traditional favourite chocolate snack KitKat is celebrating its 17th year at the top of the chocs, with sales in 2002 again worth a quarter of a billion pounds - outselling nearest rivals Mars Bar and Cadbury's Dairy Milk by many tens of millions of pounds.

But Mr Harrison said Nestl had exciting plans for KitKat in 2003 in a bid to send sales soaring even higher, with full details to be released later.

He said four million KitKats may be sold every day, but there was plenty of opportunity to sell even more.

Another old favourite, Smarties, slipped in the confectionery sales charts for 2002, falling in the face of tough competition from 17th to 24th place, even though total sales remained steady.

The company is concerned that older children feel they have more sophisticated tastes than the traditional tube of Smarties.

To meet demand for the next cool product, Nestl recently launched its new Smarties chocolate bar, containing mini-Smarties, and it hopes this will boost total sales in 2003.

Nestl Rowntree achieved an 18 per cent share of the confectionery market last year, with about £1bn of sales. This puts it on a par with rival Mars, and two per cent behind the third major player, Cadbury.

York's other major confectioner, Terry's, had three per cent of the total market share.

Updated: 09:56 Thursday, January 09, 2003