Cadbury is expanding its female-focused Crispello chocolate countline into a sharing bag format.

Crispello was launched last September and drew some criticism for its positioning as a chocolate bar for women - but accusations of being patronising don’t appear to have harmed sales.

The countline version brought in £3m in its first 12 weeks on shelf, according to Kantar Worldpanel [12 w/e 23 December]. The strong figures have encouraged Cadbury to roll out a 120g bag (rsp: £2.03) of 12 individually-wrapped Crispello pieces next week.

The new line will be backed by a £6m marketing push in the first half of 2013, which will include TV ads, digital and in-store sampling.