Nestle is to increase the pressure on Masterfoods' Maltesers by extending the Aero Bubbles concept to brands such as Yorkie.
New variants of its peppermint chocolate balls will also be launched,including a milk chocolate and truffle flavour. Nestle invested more than £1m in the Bubbles brand last year,adding Sticky Toffee, Irish Cream and Chocolate Truffle variants to theAero bar range. Maltesers, the UK's third-biggest chocolate brand, fell 0.9% in value inthe year to October, according to ACNielsen. Over the same period, Aero, which is the 10th-biggest brand, increasedits value by 28.4%.