In 1976, Eric Nicoli of Rowntree's spotted a gap in the confectionery market for a "manly" chocolate bar, and so the company launched Yorkie as a chunkier competitor to Cadbury's Dairy Milk.

[4] Another prominent ad from this period was a billboard at York railway station with the words "Welcome to" and a picture of a half unwrapped Yorkie bar.

[5] In 2002, the bar's relaunch campaign made this positioning more explicit, with the addition of a wrapper tagline reading "It's not for girls!

[7] However, an associated promotional campaign in which free sample bars were handed out exclusively to men was banned by Liverpool's and Birmingham's councils.

A special version for use in Ministry of Defence ration packs was also produced, with its tagline reading "It's not for civvies".

[11] Yorkie bars were originally composed of six chunks of chocolate each marked Rowntree; they were wrapped in both foil and an outer paper wrapper and weighed 58 g (2.0 oz).