The campaign to replace the Easter bunny with the bilby got going in the 1990s.
Proceeds from the sales of chocolate bilbies have helped kickstart some major conservation projects to help bring the animal back from the brink.
But the chocolate bilby is yet to take over from the bunny as the Australia's Easter mascot.
In 2019 Cadbury announced it would stop making chocolate bilbies citing a significant decline in demand.
Last year however, Darrell Lea starting making them again after an eight-year hiatus.
Improved outlook for bilbies in the wild
Bilbies once inhabited 70 per cent of Australia.
A huge reduction in habitat and damage caused by feral foxes and cats as well as competition with rabbits have taken a big toll on the species.
One variety, the lesser bilby is now presumed to be extinct.
But as Kevin Bradley, CEO of the Save the Bilby Fund explains, the long-term outlook is improving.
"Things are going well in the bilby world after years and years of hard work," he says.
"The environment has been on our side too with a few years of exceptionally good rainfall."
In 2003, funds from the sale of chocolate bilbies helped to build a 25-square-kilometre predator-proof fenced enclosure in Currawinya National Park in south-west Queensland.
Mr Bradley saw his first bilby in the wild outside of the fence two years ago and it's only gotten better since then.
"I regularly see signs of bilbies outside and well away from the fence," he says.
"Even in the presence of feral predators they appear to be doing quite well."
Bilby numbers are improving but Mr Bradley says the key is making the population strong enough so it can survive when conditions are less favourable.
"Bilbies are a boom or bust species and the tricky thing about the work we do is when things dry up. the pressure is on."
Last year, more than 30 bilbies were translocated from Currawinya National Park to the Northern Territory.
The enormous undertaking involved flying the bilbies more than 2,200 kilometres to Newhaven Reserve, north-west of Alice Springs.
One year on and Kevin Bradley says all the bilbies have settled in well.
Who came up with the idea of the Easter bilby?
There are varying accounts of who produced the first chocolate bilby, but the environmental charity Foundation for Rabbit Free Australia own the rights to the term Easter bilby.
In 1993 Haigh's Chocolates in Adelaide swapped Easter bunnies for Easter bilbies and have donated part of the profits to Rabbit Free Australia ever since.
Fiona Krawczyk, the marketing manager for Haigh's, says there has been a steady increase in sales over the years.
"There is growing awareness of the bilby, more people understand the story of why we don't sell chocolate Easter bunnies," she says.
To ensure bilbies' long-term future, conservation groups around Australia hope the chocolate version makes an even bigger comeback this year.
