Mars bar overtakes Kit Kat as the most popular chocolate bar, along with Cadbury’s Dairy Milk.

CONSIDERING that the makers of Kit Kat went all the way to the European Court to protect their famous slogan, it is ironic that consumers are indeed having a break — from Nestlé Rowntree’s flagship product.

Sales of the company's best-selling chocolate bar for years the most popular in Ireland and the UK have plummeted in the past year.

So marked is the fall that the company's new managing director, Chris White, announced: "Nestlé Rowntree is a business in crisis."

He hopes the company can reclaim lost consumers by introducing the lemon cheesecake flavour Kit Kats already beloved by German and Japanese snackers.

Chocolate crumb for Kit Kat is made at the company's factory in Mallow, Co Cork and then shipped to Britain. There is also a manufacturing facility in Dublin.

The runaway success of the Kit Kat was one of the main reasons for the Swiss firm Nestlé's determination to capture the 19th century York-based manufacturers Rowntree in 1989.

The bar was first launched in 1935 for 2d (roughly one and a half cent) under the name of Rowntree's Chocolate Crisp. Within two years, the snappier Kit Kat had been adopted and by the following year it was the company's most popular product.

It became Britain's favourite bar with its endorsement by Churchill's wartime government as healthy, cheap food, and maintained its supremacy within Rowntree even after the Nestlé takeover, in spite of competition from internal rivals such as Smarties, Polos and Black Magic.

Confectionery is a huge industry in Britain and Ireland, worth up to €6bn. The Irish and British are big consumers of chocolate, eating around 12kg and 10kg respectively each per year.

Ireland has the third highest consumption of chocolate in the world with 8.4 bars munched per head every week (after no 1 the Czech Republic at 9.6 and no 2 Norway at 8.6). The average Irish consumer spends €70 a year on chocolate, almost double the EU average of €37.

But sales have almost reached saturation point, analysts believe. Statistics by market analysts Information Resources suggest that the Kit Kat has been overtaken by its rivals, Dairy Milk and the Mars Bar, just as Nestlé Rowntree has, in recent years, been overtaken by their respective manufacturers, Cadbury Trebor Bassett and Masterfoods.

"Saying the business is in crisis is extreme and I don't think Chris White really means that," argued John Band, consumer markets analyst for Datamonitor. "But maintaining its position in the confectionery market is a challenge. It's a cut-throat market."

Dan Babb, account director of Information Resources, says consumers are increasingly keen on products they can offer to others and blocks of chocolate such as Bournville are selling more than ever for this reason.

Nestlé Rowntree's recent block offering, Double Cream, has performed respectably but not outstandingly.

Mr Babb added: "To me, brands like Toffee Crisp and Kit Kat look a bit old- fashioned. They seem like 70s brands and perhaps staid. Mars have introduced things like M&Ms which are new in comparison."

Amid fears that consumers may turn to healthier options in future, one possible way forward may be to invest in low-sugar, low-calorie products, which a recent Euromonitor report suggested were becoming increasingly popular particularly given the Government's drive to promote nutritious diets.

Companies are also looking to less-saturated markets, such as eastern Europe. Independent analysts say that sales in Britain have fallen by £21m (€31.3m) over the last year, to £820m (€1.2bn).

The most recent production line for Kit Kats opened in the Bulgarian capital Sofia two years ago, and was described by the deputy prime minister Nikolai Vassilev as "not the biggest investment in the country but the sweetest".