Following plans revealed at this year’s Sweets & Snacks Expo, Ferrero has unveiled its latest Wonka themed confectionery series, as part of a major confectionery campaign, reports Neill Barston.

Visitors to this year’s key event were invited to the company’s stand in Las Vegas, where details emerged of plans to revive the popular series of bars, and a further linked series of products.

Shoppers throughout the UK will now have an early sight of the much-anticipated series that is being linked with an exclusive deal with Netflix, which is producing a new animated Wonka feature that has already garnered significant interest.

The new series is set to include a Wonka Purplypurple Milk Chocolate Bar, Wonka Magic Hats, Oompa Loompa Milk Chocolate figures, Kinder Joy Eggs, and Oompa Loompa gummies, which have launched this week in Morrisons and Asda, before a wider retail roll-out.

The new Wonka range. Pic: Ferrero

Notably, the Wonka series, which was discontinued under its former ownership by Nestle in 2010, was acquired by Ferrero in 2018 to much fanfare, becoming an established staple within its portfolio.

However, the series was itself phased out amid the pandemic, which as Confectionery Production has reported on, led to a backlog in demand from fans – which prompted incidents of ‘fake bars’ emerging within a number of UK independent stores, which prompted government-backed health warnings on their emergence.

Notably, a further pivotal moment arrived that could have seen the brand emerge with new offerings surrounded the recent Warner Bros, Wonka movie starring Timothee Chalamet in 2023, but there was no official confectionery link to the movie, despite consumer expectations. However, with the emergence of connections to a new Netflix screen offering, the franchise is set to see a fresh serving of chocolate offerings.

Research and development
With the range beginning to roll out across markets from autumn 2026, UK Head of R&D at Ferrero, Gary Youren and food historian Seren Charrington-Hollins answer some of the key questions behind this new chapter for Wonka, from how Ferrero turned imagination into reality to how an iconic world can continue to evolve across multiple generations.

“What was important to us was to remember that, in the books and films, people loved Wonka products not only because they were zany or strange, but because they were delicious” Youren explains. “We wanted products that tasted great, with some surprising twists.”

The team began referring to this as the Wonka Twist – taking familiar ideas and finding unexpected ways to explore them through flavour, texture, colour and format.

As the company observed, development of the new series began with understanding what made the Wonka brand stand out from an especially crowded field. 

What’s more, for Youren and the team, it was also a brief that felt particularly close to home. “We work in a chocolate factory, and for years people have compared our roles to Willy Wonka’s, so to actually do that ‘for real’ was amazingly exciting,” says Youren.

Turning that creative starting point for transforming a much loved movie and subsequent confectionery line into a new generation of products required combining experimentation with Ferrero’s technical and manufacturing expertise. Leaning on the team’s strong experience in quality craftsmanship, this project required a high standard of innovation and creativity, to bring the Wonka universe to life.

“There were moments when we really did not know how we would achieve what we were trying to do,” says Youren. “Sourcing ideas from engineering and technology colleagues was essential in finding the right solutions.”

At Ferrero’s Alfreton site in the UK, R&D and manufacturing teams worked together to translate those ideas into products that could be made consistently and at scale.

For one part of the range, the team designed and installed new equipment to achieve the visual finish envisioned during development. Throughout, quality remained central. “The important thing is consistently high-quality craftsmanship,” Youren explains. “The work to optimise and improve does not stop.”

For Youren, one of the most rewarding parts of the project has been seeing people experience the results for the first time. “As the project has gotten bigger, there are always new colleagues tasting the products for the first time, even if I have tasted them many times,” he says. “It remains a thrill to see how people react.”