Rowntree's is now a brand of Nestlé SA and is used to market a range of fruit gums and pastilles formerly owned by Rowntree Mackintosh.. The Rowntree brand is also used on a number of ice lollies (made by Richmond Foods) for Nestlé. The brand has a similar marketplace to that of the Trebor Bassett division of Cadbury's, and actually competes head to head with this company in a number of fruit gum categories.

History

Rowntree was founded in York, and merged with rival Mackintosh in 1969 to become Rowntree Mackintosh. Rowntree was responsible for such British chocolate favourites as Kit Kat, Smarties, Aero, Fruit Pastilles and Black Magic, whilst John Mackintosh and Co. was behind Rolo, Munchies, Caramac and Toffo. The company went public in 1987 and was taken over by Nestlé in 1988. When Nestlé took over the company, the chocolate ranges began to use the branding Nestlé-Rowntree, before eventually the Rowntree name was dropped from the packaging altogether. The Mackintosh branding completely dropped from all former Rowntree Mackintosh products, except for Toffos, which retain the Mackintosh branding.

The original factory was in the centre of the city of York, next to the River Ouse at Tanners Moat, but later relocated to Haxby Road in the north of the city.

Since taking over Rowntree Mackintosh's brands, there has been much criticism of the way that Nestlé have changed the brands. Nestlé accepted that their purchase of the company was primarily for the five principal brands: Kit Kat, Aero, Polo, Fruit Pastilles, and Quality Street, rather than for capital assets. Since taking over Rowntree Mackintosh, the following changes have been made:

• A brazil nut covered in chocolate now becomes a hazelnut covered in chocolate in the shape of a brazil nut. They have also mutated large Quality Street sweets for individual sale.
• Kit Kat went from being foil and paper wrapped to being plastic wrapped. It is also being made as a chunky bar and in different flavours.
• Smarties have had blue sweets replaced by white, and are now sold in "hexa-tube" octrahedronal cardboard containers that replace the traditional cylindrical tube.
• Polo's have gone different flavours and been miniaturized. Polo holes are also sold separately.
• Caramac has allegedly had the recipe changed.

Trivia

• One year, there was "The Search for the Rowntree", a special run of adverts that showed a boy's quest to search for the titular tree. This quest also introduced the Bursting Bugs sweets midway through. The Rowntree is still used today on Rowntree's branded sweets (The "T" of the word is used for the Rowntree).

• In May 2006, Nestlé hid a number of golden tickets in their Kit Kat range of bars for the Endemol television show Big Brother (UK series 7), the idea being the lucky finders of the tickets would have a chance of entering the Big Brother (UK series 7) house in June. Thirty-five golden ticket finders lined up outside the house live on Channel 4 on the 9th June, and one was picked by random draw by the housemates, and entered the house. The lucky winner was 43 year old Susie Verrico.

Current Branded Products

• Rowntree's Fruit Gums
• Rowntree's Fruit Pastilles
• Rowntree's Beetles and Butterflies
• Rowntree's Fruity Frogs
• Rowntree's Xtra Sour Spiders
• Rowntree's Wiggly Worms

External Links

• The complete history of Nestlè Rowntree in York

• Aerial view of the Rowntree's factory in York.

Confectionery | Nestlé brands