Lion (chocolate bar)

Chocolate bar

Lion is a brand of chocolate bar currently owned and manufactured by Nestlé. The brand was originally introduced by British company Rowntree's in 1976. It consists of a filled wafer with caramel and cereals covered in milk chocolate.

Lion was first launched by Yorkshire confectionery company Rowntree's in Fawdon, Newcastle in 1976. The production of Lion bars was moved to a factory in Dijon, France when it was bought by Swiss company Nestlé in 1988. The campaign was suited to the target market of teenage boys which differed from Lion bar's traditional target market of 18 to 34 year old males. The sampling team gave away more than 650,000 Lion bars at ten shopping centres and 20 town centre locations.

On 20 July 2017, a lorry containing twenty five tons of Lion bars burst into flames on the A2 road, near the junction for the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent. The fire caused traffic disruption and three of the four London bound lanes were closed. The Kent Fire and Rescue Service said the cause of the blaze was not known and Nestlé said that the driver of the lorry was not injured. It was available exclusively in B&M for the remainder of 2021 before launching in other retailers in 2022.

Nestlé produce a spin off breakfast cereal called "Lion Cereal" which is described as “the King of Cereals” and contains chocolate, caramel and whole grain to make it taste like the Lion chocolate bar. It was also found that the cereal contained four times as much fat than recommended at 13.7 grams as well as 0.75g salt. In 2016, researchers from the World Action on Salt and Health reported that Nestle's Lion cereal contained over two teaspoons of sugar per serving at 29 grams of sugar per 100 grams which in the survey placed the cereal only behind Frosties, Coco Pops and Crunchy Nut Cornflakes in terms of sugar. In January 2020, Nestlé developed a perfume based on the breakfast cereal called Eau de Lion which was produced in a limited edition run of 300 bottles in France. In March 2021, Lion Cereal and Mother announced their advertising campaign called "King of the Jingle" which aimed to create a jingle for the brand. Participants had from 23 August 2021 until 2 October 2021 to enter and the eleven winners were selected by Hatik, Bilal Hassani, Ogee and Lou.