Global food giant Nestlé has launched new flavours of its popular Munchies which are made at its plant in Fawdon, Newcastle.
The factory is producing chocolate fudge brownie and cookie dough flavours of Munchies after research by Nestlé found demand from the public for the new flavours from 10 potential new brands.
Munchies have been produced since 1957, originally by British confectionery firm Mackintosh’s and later by Rowntree and then Nestlé after takeovers of the original firm.
They are manufactured at Fawdon using the same shell moulding equipment as is used on Rolos, and are the second new product line to launch there this year, following the production of Milkybar Mix Ups.
Nestlé has praised staff at the Newcastle plant for getting the new products into production just six months after they were first dreamed up. Support for the Fawdon plant has been provided by the company’s York factory in developing the fillings for the sweets.
Nestlé product specialist Esther Adamson said: “They’re a different kind of texture to what our standard Munchies are, these are a bit more smooth and you’ve got the strong flavour then of both the cookie dough and the fudge brownie coming through.
“We were fortunate that we could actually make the fillings here at Fawdon. We worked with a team at one of our other plants to put together all the ingredients and developing the flavour along with them and the best flavour level to actually put then on the finished product.”
The production of the new items has helped to reduce job losses at Fawdon when production of the Blue Riband biscuit was moved to Poland in 2017. The factory employs around 600 people, with a wide range of products that includes Fruit Pastilles, Jelly Tots, Matchmakers, Munchies, Caramac and Rolo.
Munchies brand manager Cat Mews said: “We are thrilled to bring these two tasty new flavours to our Munchies family. Our teams in York and Fawdon have worked tirelessly over the last six months to bring these new flavours to our loyal Munchies fans.
“It’s a real delight to see (and taste) the results of our hard work, reaction so far has been amazing and we can’t wait to see what’s next for Munchies.”
