Thomas Heaton

Good luck having a race down Baldwin St with these lollies.

With Kiwi chocolate-sweet lovers anxiously awaiting news of the fate of perennial favourites, the Pineapple Lump and  the Jaffa, chocolate maker Cadbury hasn't been slow to seize a marketing opportunity, launching a new hybrid of the two confectionaries.

The chocolate orange Jaffa Lumps look like a Pineapple Lump and share that sweet's teeth-pulling texture, but the flavour is all Jaffa-orange.

The release on Friday, including bags of free promotional samples sent out far and wide, appears to have had the desired result, with social media lighting up and news of the new creation quickly going global -  as Stuff's Homed editor Colleen O'Hanlon can attest, after waking to a Facebook message from her London-based brother, Declan, demanding insights into the new Jaffa Lumps. 

Not everyone was convinced, with one Twitter user dismissing the flavour of "medicinal" - a comment reminiscent of the verdict of high-profile English restaurant reviewer Jay Rayner during his recent visit to New Zealand, when he described Pineapple Lumps as tasting like a pineapple-flavoured child's antibiotic.

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Jaffas have become a Kiwi favourite for their roll-ability - demonstrated en masse down Dunedin's Baldwin St - as well as for their sweet choc-orange flavour.

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British food critic Jay Rayner was unimpressed with Pineapple Lumps; Jaffa Lumps are unlikely to move him either.

Cadbury's decision to close its Dunedin factory has left uncertainty over its Kiwi sweet line-up (much of it, like Pineapple Lumps and Jaffas, marketed under the Pascall label).

The prospect of them disappearing from the country's confectionary shelves has even prompted an ambitious $20 million fundraising campaign to keep production of Cadbury's Kiwi brands alive.  

Bags of the orange candies will hit officially shelves on Monday, June 19, and will be sold for a limited time.  Whether the same fate awaits the original products is yet to be seen.

 - Stuff