| Wonka | |
| Currentowner: | Ferrero SpA |
| Discontinued: | 2018 |
| Markets: | International |
| Previousowners: | Sunmark, Nestlé |
Wonka (formerly Nestlé Candy Shop and The Willy Wonka Candy Company) was a confectionery brand owned and licensed by the Swiss corporation Nestlé. In 2018, the branding and production rights were sold to the Ferrero Group, and as a result, the brand was discontinued. The brand later got revived as promotion for Wonka (film).
The previous inception of the Wonka brand came from materials licensed from the British author Roald Dahl. His classic 1964 children's novel, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and its film adaptations are the sources of both the packaging and the marketing styles of the Wonka brand. Dahl had licensed the "Wonka" name to film director Mel Stuart. The film's producer, David L. Wolper, convinced the Quaker Oats Company to advance $3 million to finance the film in exchange for the right to use the Wonka name to sell candy bars.[1] Quaker, which had no previous experience in the film industry, bought the rights to the book and financed the picture to promote their new "Wonka Bar". The title of the film was changed to Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory for promotional purposes.[2]
The brand was launched on 17 May 1971, one month before the release of the novel's first film adaptation on 30 June 1971. In 1975, Breaker Confections was acquired by Sunmark Corporation of Saint Louis, Missouri. In 1980, the Breaker Confections brand name was changed to "Willy Wonka Brands" in an attempt to develop the "Wonka" brand image. The company was sold in 1986 to Rowntree Mackintosh Confectionery of the UK, who were then acquired in 1988 by Swiss company Nestlé. In 1993, Nestlé renamed it the "Willy Wonka Candy Company", and then "Nestlé Candy Shop" in 2015.[3] In 1988, the Willy Wonka Candy Company brand, then owned by Sunmark Corporation, was acquired by Nestlé. The original "Wonka Bars" never saw store shelves due to factory production problems before the film's release; however, subsequent Wonka product releases were highly successful, including the Everlasting Gobstopper in 1976 and Nerds in 1983.
From 1988 to 2017, Nestlé sold sweets and chocolate under the Wonka brand name in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Africa, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Costa Rica, Panama, Dominican Republic, and the Middle East. The cessation of the Wonka brand was due to the impending sale of branding rights to the Ferrero Group.[4]
To promote the upcoming film Wonka, Ferrara revived the Wonka brand name for promotional "Magic Hat Gummies".
On January 18, 2018, Ferrero announced that it would be purchasing the Nestlé US candy business and all of its US products, office locations, and manufacturing plants. The deal gave Nestlé a value of approximately $2.8 billion.[5]