Cadbury launches new diet Dairy Milk chocolate with 30% less sugar

New Zealanders may have to wait a little longer for the Cadbury bar to hit Shelves in NZ. Photo / Getty Images

Exciting news has dropped for chocolate lovers, Cadbury has launched a diet Dairy Milk bar with 30 per cent less sugar than a classic Cadbury Dairy Milk.

The bar will hit shelves in the UK today, alongside the original bar, to offer consumers a greater choice and help to manage sugar intakes, Cadbury revealed.

Cadbury launches its 30 percent less sugar bar today in the UK. Photo / Cadbury

The bar was created last year after the UK Government unveiled plans to halve childhood obesity by 2030.

Mondelez International, the owner of Cadbury, described the new bar as the "most significant innovation in the brand's history".

Although the sugar content has reduced from 56g per 100g in the original bar to 39g per 100g in the new version, the calorie content remains similar between the new and original bars.

The bar was created in efforts to tackle the obesity crisis. Photo / 123RF

It took a team of 20 scientists, nutritionists and chocolatiers three years at the Cadbury facilities to cut the sugar without adding artificial sweeteners, colours or preservatives.

"It was not an easy process," a spokeswoman for Cadbury revealed.

Mondelez described the new bar as "incredibly similar".

Some of the sugar has been replaced with a type of fibre which has the same structure, texture and similar taste as the original bar.

Katrina Davison, Cadbury brand manager, said: "There is an increasing trend for people wanting to manage their sugar intake and that's why we have worked tirelessly to create a Cadbury Dairy Milk bar with 30 per cent less sugar, which still tastes great."

The classic bar is not the only one getting a makeover, as there plans for the next two years to release lower-sugar Jelly Babies and Oreos, a protein bar with 32 per cent less sugar and a line of its BelVita breakfast biscuits with 40 per cent less sugar, reports the Independent.

The news of Cadbury's diet bar came only days after Nestlé announced it had found a way to create a chocolate bar without any refined sugar by using the white pulp that covers cocoa beans as a natural sweetener.