Atlantic Candy Co. has been awarded a non-exclusive license to manufacture chocolate-toy products using patents owned by Henry Whetstone, Jr.

Currently licensed in the United States to Yowie and Choco Treasure brands, the patents provide a safe product design that allows a toy capsule and two pieces of chocolate to be wrapped together as a single product. The European rights to the patents were sold to Ferrero, manufacturer of Kinder Surprise, in 2004.

The design was created after a similar chocolate-toy product by Nestle was challenged by the FDA and withdrawn from the market. Whetstone invented "a safe product design" to deliver chocolate-toy products to the U.S. market.

He also designed and built proprietary manufacturing lines to form and assemble the products according to the patents.

Atlantic Candy's St. Augustine, Fla. facility was originally built in 1997 to manufacture the now-withdrawn chocolate-toy products for Nestle. The facility, which is being targeted to achieve BRC food safety certification early this year, currently has 40 million units per year of capacity.

It is set to expand to 160 million units per year by the end of 2017, and is now able to manufacture chocolate-toy products under multiple brands and as a contract manufacturer for others.