An Aussie chocolatier has been forced to change the name of one of its popular products by a world famous confectionery giant.

The family-run business Yarra Valley Chocolaterie in Victoria was stunned when it received a legal notice from Nestle, in the US, telling it to rename its chocolate ‘freckle’ products.

Nestle, which owns the Australian brand that produces the chocolate drops covered in 100s and 1000s known as Freckles, gave the owners of the Yarra Valley Chocolaterie three months to rename their own version of the popular sweet.

Allen’s Freckles were introduced in the early 60s and have been a crowd-pleaser for decades.

Yarra Valley Chocolaterie owner Leeane Neeland told 6PR Breakfast radio it wasn’t worth the fight so, they’ve chosen to rename the popular chocolate.

“We looked at Nestle, the biggest food company in the world and decided not to take them on,” Leeane said.

When the radio hosts pointed out that many chocolatiers across the nation use the name ‘freckle’ for similar products and asked why Yarra Valley was singled out by Nestle, Leeane suggested her products are a threat.

“Well, we have 1.5 million visitors to our tourist destinations over here in Victoria so we’re selling an awful lot of Freckles, so perhaps we’re a threat – that’s our positive spin on it,” she said.

“We spoke to the trademark lawyers and they said ‘don’t bother – it’d be a waste of an enormous amount of legal fees.’

“So we went out to our Facebook followers and our Instagram followers and we had all sorts of fun ideas, so we have now started to rename everything ‘Polkadots’.”

Despite needing to change the names of a whole range including eggs, lollypops, and giant Freckles, Leeane wasn’t worried about losing business as a result.

“People are not reading a label; they see all those bright sprinkles on chocolates and know what they are,” she said.