10 best chocolate bars ranked – from Maltesers to iconic Cadbury’s Dairy Milk

We consumed huge amounts of chocolate during the pandemic, with firm favourites mixing with some surprising additions to make up the list of our most-bought brands

Brits went mad for chocolate during the pandemic, with brands like Cadbury, Lindor and Galaxy seeing huge increases in sales.

What’s truly surprising is just how far in front of the pack our favourite chocolate is, managing to outsell even its nearest rival by more than three times.

Here is a full breakdown of the nation’s top 10 favourite chocolate treats over the past 12 months. How many of your favourites made the list?

1) Cadbury’s Dairy Milk

Over the past 12 months Brits bought £650million of the chocolate – three times more than its next closest rival.

We actually bought £652.3million of the confectionery in the last year, up 2.8% – or 71.7million bars – on the period before.

The chocolate bar might not be flashy, but its simple formula has proven its our firm favourite.

What are your favourites? Let us know in the comments below

2. Galaxy

Our second most-loved chocolate was Galaxy, and Brits snapped up £202.3million of its bars in the past 12 months – up 6.7%.

The brand is making up for a difficult 2020, when supply issues meant it lost ground to rivals like Cadbury, the Grocer reports .

3. Lindt Lindor

A surprising third place goes to Lindt Lindor, which increased its sales by 23.1% in the period to £185.9million.

The Swiss chocolatier said its Lindor chocolate balls and Excellence bars had been the biggest drivers of sales during the past year.

4. Maltesers

The light chocolate balls were first sold in the UK in 1937 and are still a firm favourite. In fact we bought £181.7million of them over the past year, up 1.7%.

5. Kinder

No surprises here – the maker of the much-loved Kinder egg is still a hit with kids in the UK.

So much so what we snapped up £159.4million of its products, an 8% increase.

6. Cadbury Twirl

Another firm vote for lighter, simple chocolate – Cadbury’s Twirl bars did really well during the pandemic.

We bought up £111.2million of them, a 2.8% increase.

7. KitKat

The crunchy KitKat has been a lunchbox staple since it launched in 1935, then called Rowntree’s Chocolate Crisp.

In the past 12 months Brits bought up £101.3million of the chocolate-covered wafer treats – but this was a drop of 1.1% on the period before.

8. Cadbury Wispa

The bubbly chocolate bar stayed a favourite last year, and we hoovered up an impressive £101million of them (down 2.3%).

9. Aero

The…. other bubbly chocolate bar, made by Nestlé, made good headway during the pandemic, selling £86.3million. This was an 11% increase on the previous period.

10. M&Ms

Finally comes M&Ms. Last year we consumed £85.7million of the chocolate-covered peanuts, but this isn’t quite as good as it sounds.

This is a drop of 17% on the sort of sales that M&Ms saw in the previous period, the biggest drop of any of the brands on the list.

M&Ms is facing stiff competition, including from smaller brands like Doisy & Dam, which make a similar product but with vegan chocolate.