From much-loved retro classics to adored imports, Australia has a rich history of confectionery that dates back to the 1840s. But which bar is the most beloved of them all? Here, we present the nation’s favourites (global big hitters, local treats and discontinued delights included), counting down to reveal the greatest Aussie bar of all time. Has your favourite treat made the list?
Click or scroll on through our gallery for the ultimate list of Australia's best-ever chocolate bars, counting down to the most iconic of them all.
Our ranking is based on the popularity of each chocolate bar, taking into account sales, longevity and the reaction to the products at the time of their release.
A cool round of dark chocolate filled with a creamy peppermint fondant, these little choccy bars were a firm lunchbox favourite. The Mint Pattie was originally made by the long-gone confectionery company Mastercraft, which was acquired by Lifesavers Australia in 1964 and then joined the Nestlé fold in the 1980s. The vintage mint choc is still a popular nibble today, along with its sister chocolate round, a disk-like cocoa and coconut combo known as the Golden Rough.
Cheap, chewy and oh-so chompable, the Australian version of Cadbury's Chomp is an irresistible combination of caramel and wafer biscuit coated in milk chocolate. Despite its slight size, this is one chocolate bar with a big presence, thanks to its ‘It’s a Monster Chew!’ branding and distinctive yellow wrapper featuring a headscarf-toting T-rex known as Tyrone. The Chomp might not be one of Cadbury's big hitters, but it’s a happy day when one of these diddy bars comes your way.
A tooth-numbingly sweet combination of chewy pink marshmallow layered with a lick of caramel and coated in Dairy Milk chocolate, Cadbury’s Pinky is one for when serious sweet cravings bite – think rocky road without any of the rocky bits. The bubblegum pink–packaged bar has its fans in in Australia, where it’s made, but it’s even more popular across the Tasman – New Zealanders love the Pinky.
One of Australia’s most historic brands, Old Gold was a favourite treat long before Cadbury made an appearance on the lolly scene Down Under. The dark chocolate bar range was originally under the stable of Melbourne-based confectioners MacRobertson’s and dates back to 1916. The brand, now part of Cadbury, enjoyed something of a comeback a few years ago as, according to its makers, Australian consumers took comfort in trusted brands and old favourites during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sweet dreams are made of this: in 2020, Cadbury’s Australia announced that due to popular demand it would be bringing back the Marble chocolate, after the much-loved bar was discontinued in 2012. The Marble is a moreish blend of marbled milk and white chocolate with a hazelnut praline centre. Marble munchers on the other side of the world were miffed, however, with fans demanding Cadbury brings the bar back in Blighty, too.
A mouthful of nostalgia for many Aussies of a certain age, the Europe Summer Roll was particularly popular in the 1970s and still has a loyal following. A tropical, chewy blend of lightly roasted peanuts and nougat rolled in chocolate and coconut, it's a moreish snack and just the right size for curbing sweet cravings. Another favourite in the Europe range is the Nougat Honey Log.
Fans of Nestlé’s discontinued Caramac might find solace in Cadbury’s Caramilk range of caramel-flavoured white chocolate. This comeback kid hasn’t had the smoothest ride, though. It first hit Australian supermarket shelves in 1968 but was discontinued in 1994. A relaunch saw it boomeranging back in limited edition form in 2018, 2019 and 2020 and it’s stuck around since. Variations have joined the fold too, including the Caramilk Wallaby in 2023.
This cute choc is a childhood favourite for many Australians and the cousin of the fiercely cherished Freddo Frog. Unlike Freddo, this adorable edible marsupial, which can be devoured in just a few bites, is filled with a gooey caramel. The koala-shaped treat used to be known as a Caramello Bear until the 1980s, with the Caramello Koala trademark registered in 1982, according to the Australian Food Timeline.
This Australian-made chocolate range, with a history that dates back to 1927, offers a cheeky chunk of local flavour. Its chocolate bars are available in a raft of flavours, with plenty of playful special editions: past limited-time treats have included the Fairy Block – chocolate sprinkled with Hundreds and Thousands in a nod to the classic childhood party food, fairy bread – and the Bondi Block, featuring peanuts, salted caramel and cornflakes. Darrell Lea appeals to customers due to its strong homegrown credentials, while all of its chocolates are made from 100% sustainably sourced cocoa and are free of palm oil.
It's not much of a looker, but Nestlé's Chokito has been a cherished choccie ever since it landed on Australian confectionery counters in the 1970s. Super sweet and with distinctive packaging, the bar has a bumpy texture on the outside, thanks to crispy rice bubbles that are enveloped by a thick milk chocolate coating. Tuck in and you'll uncover a gooey fudge interior. First developed in Switzerland, the Chokito really struck a chord with the Australian market in particular, no doubt helped by its catchy advertising.
The world’s most famous white chocolate bar has a huge following in Australia, where it's a favourite of kids and sweet-toothed grown-ups alike. The Milkybar was invented by Nestlé in Switzerland and launched in 1939. Its famous slogan ‘The Milkybars are on me!’ and the face of the brand, the Milkybar Kid, were introduced in 1961 and struck a chord with global markets. There have been various iterations of the bar in Australia, including a Milo Milkybar featuring crispy choc-malt balls flavoured with Milo (the classic Aussie chocolate-flavoured malted drink).
Like many of the best inventions, Cadbury’s Flake came about by happy accident. Way back in 1920, in the chocolate maker’s Bourneville factory, a worker noticed that chocolate overflowing from moulds fell into striking folds and thus the idea for the ‘crumbliest, flakiest chocolate’ was born and exported around the world. This clever slogan and long-running ads featuring the ‘Flake girls’ carved out a strong identity for the melt-in-the-mouth bar. A mint-flavoured version of the crumbly milk chocolate launched in the Australian market in 2019 but was sadly short lived.
Toffee-encased peanuts smothered in chocolate make a combination that truly endures, as the triumphant return of this classic treat goes to show. Dating back to 1928, the Scorched Peanut Bar soon become Mastercraft’s flagship offering and by the 1960s, the dense delight was among the country’s top five most popular bars. The toothsome treat was discontinued in 2000 due to dwindling sales, but in a sweet twist of fate it was relaunched by Cooks Confectionery in 2019. It still has its original packaging design, and the modern range now includes bites and tubs.
A melt-in-the-mouth bar that makes many Brits nostalgic, Cadbury's white chocolate version of Dairy Milk was discontinued in the UK in 2002. Not so in Australia. The Dream lives on in the Lucky Country, with supermarkets selling Cadbury Dream bars alongside the likes of the newer – but no less delicious – Dream with Oreos.
This aerated bar of creamy milk chocolate is a light and lovely mood lifter enjoyed in many parts of the chocolate chomping world, Australia included. Velvety bubbles of milk chocolate are cloaked in more chocolate, which seemingly melts in the mouth like a whisper. The bar went down a storm when it launched in the UK in 1983, going on to become a hit in international markets. It was discontinued in 2003, but the airy bar breezed back by popular demand a few years later and remains a reliable choice when choccie cravings hit.
For all their rivalry, when it comes to chocolate the Australians are very open to Kiwi concoctions. Invented in Christchurch in 1896, when British-born J.H Whittaker began making chocolate in his home, the company moved north to Wellington in 1911. The chocolate is still made just outside the capital today by the fourth generation of Whittakers and remains a well-loved brand on both sides of the Tasman Sea. Popular bars include the classic Creamy Milk, the original Peanut Block (created in the 1950s) and the Toasted Coconut Slab.
Despite being an international interloper and archrival to the all-Australian Violet Crumble, Cadbury’s Crunchie still has a loyal fan base. The hokey pokey–centred, milk chocolate–smothered bar was first created in the UK in 1929 by J. S. Fry & Sons, Ltd. (better known as Fry's) and has a different texture to the Violet Crumble, with chewier, softer honeycomb. As well as the standard Crunchie bar, the chocolate has been cross-pollinated with bars of Cadbury Dairy Milk to make the Cadbury Dairy Milk Crunchie.
While the Wispa Mint went missing from supermarket shelves around the world over 20 years ago, Nestlé's Aero Peppermint is still hitting the spot when it comes to curbing mint-choc cravings. The bubbly bar, with its aerated mint chocolate interior and milk chocolate shell, is the cooler younger sister to the Aero, which launched in the UK in 1935, with production beginning in Australia in the early 1970s. The Aero Peppermint remains one of the country's favourites bars and the Aussie version is said to have a smoother, creamier taste than its British counterpart.
Crumbly and creamy, but with a denser texture and less mess than the Flake thanks to its outer chocolate layer, the Twirl was an instant hit. The Cadbury twin pack was born in the UK in the 1970s and soon secured its place in Australia’s confectionery canon. In 2023, the Mondelēz-owned confectionery brand did a stealth release of a special edition of the bar in Australia – the Twirl Honeycomb Sundae Bar, which featured honeycomb swirls. It followed the successful launch of the Twirl Caramilk and Twirl Breakaway in the Twirl-loving nation.
The sister bar to Mars, the roasted peanut-nougat chocolate Snickers was created in 1930 in Chicago and named after the Mars family's racehorse. It was launched in Australia in 1979 and has been made in Mars’ Australian factory in Ballarat, Victoria, ever since. The classic chunky bar remains a hard favourite and in 2022, parent company Mars Wrigley launched a limited-edition Snickers Creamy Peanut Butter bar, which was sold in twin packs, to the joy of Snickers-loving locals.
A favourite ‘little lunch’ (mid-morning break at primary school) treat, the KitKat and its chunky sister are well up there as one of the most beloved chocolate bars in Australia. It's a bar with history, too: the KitKat name was registered by Rowntree’s in the UK in 1911, with the bar itself born in 1935 as Rowntree's Chocolate Crisp. Branded KitKat in 1937, the snappy bar was distributed to Commonwealth countries (including Australia) in the 1950s, with its iconic ‘Have a Break, Have a KitKat’ slogan coined in 1958. Another landmark year for the chocolate-covered wafer treat, which is now owned by Nestlé, was 1999 when the KitKat Chunky joined the clan.
When you’re feeling hungry, this hefty hunk of a chocolate bar will fill you up and satisfy sweet cravings with ease. While you’ll find the Picnic is a perennial favourite among the Cadbury carousel in a number of countries, the Australian version is a little bit different. Namely, it doesn't have raisins in it. Instead, it’s all about the wafer, caramel, peanuts and creamy chocolate coating. While not much of a looker, the log-like bar sure hits the sweet spot.
Loyal Violet Crumble munchers insist that, while this chocolate-coated toffee and honeycomb bar is similar to a Crunchie, it’s far superior. The bar was invented by English immigrant Abel Hoadley at Hoadley's Chocolates, founded in 1913. The Melbourne confectionery company also gave us the Polly Waffle and Bertie Beetle, a discontinued bar that was created to make use of the leftover bits of honeycomb from the Violet Crumble. Australian company Robern Menz bought the brand in 2018 and now makes the iconic crunchy bar in Adelaide, along with (controversial) mint, caramel and dark chocolate versions.
The Mars story began in the English town of Slough, where it was created by Forrest Mars Sr. – son of American candy makers Frank and Ethel Mars, who created the Milky Way bar in the 1920s. Forrest took the soft nougat of the Milky Way, added a layer of caramel, then smothered it in thick milk chocolate. Launched Down Under in 1959, the iconic ‘A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play’ line was coined in 1975 and a Mars factory opened in Ballarat, Victoria in 1979. Another seminal moment for the treat was the launch of fun-size Mars Bars in 1978 (arguably now the most coveted item in a box of Celebrations).
The beloved – and bestselling – Freddo Frog was invented in 1930, by Melbourne-based chocolate manufacturer MacRobertson’s. It was the brainchild of a young employee who had the foresight to suggest that a choccy frog would hop into the nation's hearts (and mouths) more easily than a mouse (the original idea). It was a smart move; around 90 million Freddos are sold in Australia every year. Now produced by Cadbury, Freddo has spawned many different products and has since been joined by a collection of mini chocolate figures, including wombats, Tasmanian devils, kiwis, kangaroos, echidnas and platypuses.
The enduring popularity of Cadbury Dairy Milk affirms the age-old sentiment that keeping things simple make sense. Launched by the British confectionery company in 1905, the creamy milk chocolate bar was its bestseller by 1920 – a position it has largely maintained both in the UK and in other markets, Australia included. The country’s Cadbury Dairy Milk bars are now made in Melbourne with milk from Tasmanian cows, and Australia is also a test market for new products like Cadbury Dairy Milk Marvellous Creations, which launched Down Under in 2012 before popping up elsewhere.
The Polly Waffle was a uniquely Australian chocolate bar that was invented in 1947 by Melbourne-based Hoadley's Chocolate. The classic treat – a moreish blend of wafer, marshmallow and chocolate – was discontinued by Nestlé in 2009, much to the dismay of loyal fans. Now owned by South Australian chocolate company Robern Menz, Polly Waffle Bites (reimagined bite-size versions of the classic Polly Waffle bar) made their much-anticipated debut on confectionary shelves in April 2024.
Love cherries? Adore chocolate? Partial to a bit of coconut? Enter the Cherry Ripe, one of Australia’s oldest and arguably most iconic choccie bars. A taste sensation, this dark chocolate bar has a fudgy centre made from a combination of cherries and moist coconut. It was created by MacRobertson's in Melbourne in 1924, but is currently part of the Cadbury brand, with Old Gold Dark Chocolate now used to smother the soft, chewy centre. Despite its divisive flavours, this golden oldie remains one of Australia's most popular picks at the lolly counter and mini versions, a double dipped option and an ice cream are now all part of the range.
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