Lewis Road chocolate milk coming soon to South Island

Lewis Road Creamery / Whittaker's Chocolate milk was hard to get your hands on during its peak popularity.

The South Island will soon see what all the fuss is about, with Lewis Road Creamery doing it's best to bring its Fresh Chocolate Milk to the people this winter.

During the peak of its popularity in Auckland, the "artisan" milk made in collaboration with chocolate from Whittaker's was being snapped up off shelves minutes after delivery from a northern Waikato farm.

Lewis Road are in the process of building a second plant at Green Valley Dairy in Mangatawhiri allowing the company to increase production in the South Island, Lewis Road Creamery's marketing director Angela Weeks told nzherald.co.nz.

"Specific dates of when this will be are still to be confirmed but we are hopeful it will be some stage this winter," Weeks said.

She promised: "We will let you know as soon as a date is confirmed".

Demand for the product - a blend of full cream milk from Mangatawhiri-based Green Valley Dairies and Whittaker's chocolate - exceeded demand expectations 30 times over since being launched at the beginning of October.

Single 750ml bottles of Lewis Road Creamery's milk valued at $6.99 were selling for up to $20 on TradeMe and customers were being limited to one bottle each.

"It's just exploded," said Lewis Road founder Peter Cullinane, a former global chief operating officer for advertising giant Saatchi & Saatchi.

The nzherald.co.nz story covering the chocolate milk craze was one of our most read food and beverage stories of 2014.

Lewis Road Creamery are producing 40,000 litres per week of the chocolate milk, a massive gain on the original 4,000.

- nzherald.co.nz