Three weeks ago today with the Pittsburgh Steelers set to meet the San Diego Chargers in a division-round playoff game, Trello Cioccolato in Moon launched a somewhat risky new product.

The 2.5-ounce chocolate bars, stamped with the Steelers logo, might have fizzled if the black-and-gold had lost. Who would want to unwrap candy and remember such bitterness? The Steelers did not, of course, lose that game. And the Steelers bars did not fizzle.

"We've shipped them to Japan, Germany, all over the world. It's just been amazing," said Pat Trello, company president. "We've shipped them to Alaska, Florida, California, everywhere."

Mr. Trello said someone from the U.S. Air Force 911th Airlift Wing in Moon picked up a case of the bars early this week. He assumes they were headed for Iraq. The company even shipped some to Baltimore -- to Steelers' fans in the home of the arch-rival Ravens.

It's been exhilarating and a bit overwhelming for the people at Trello Cioccolato, a specialty candy-maker headquartered on Beaver Grade Road.

"We've been running more shifts, running more lines," Mr. Trello said. They are on their third order of molds for the chocolate; they have about 1,000 in use now.

How many bars are they making? Mr. Trello didn't know -- they've been too busy to compile the information. "Honestly, we're just trying to supply the demand," he said.

"Valentine's Day, Christmas, you have a forecast," he said of major specialty-chocolate selling times. "You know what to expect.

"This being a whole new endeavor, we didn't know what to expect."

The idea was an outgrowth of Terrible Towel chocolate bars that Mr. Trello has made for years, one of more than 1,000 different shapes they can make.

"As the Steelers increased their wins, we increased in our sales of Terrible Towel bars," Mr. Trello said. "We figured it would make sense to also do a Steeler bar."

The company had to license the rights to the Steeler logo -- the rights to the Terrible Towel belong to Allegheny Valley School -- and had to demonstrate that the product would be a good one.

"The Steelers are synonymous with quality," Mr. Trello said. "This has to be a quality chocolate as well."

Quality is also important because everyone who eats a Trello Steelers bar is a potential return customer. Mr. Trello joked that thanks to an "ancient Italian secret," they are confident of winning new fans.

"The first thing most people say is, 'This is the best chocolate I ever tasted,' " he said. "That's what we want." He described the mix as ultra-chocolate, which in layman's terms means there are "not a lot of additives and fillers and waxy taste."

But he also said the Steelers bars are more than just a business proposition. As a die-hard fan who lived in Minnesota for years, he said he knows what it's like to be removed from the heart of Steelers country.

Customers from the hinterlands "call us, and talk to us, ask us what it's like in Pittsburgh right now," he said. "It's like we're bringing a little piece of Pittsburgh to them."

Because of those people, Mr. Trello is shipping 10-bar and 30-bar packs as well as 180-bar cases, so Steelers fans simply having a party can get some Steelers bars.

"I don't want some fan in Dubuque, Iowa, to be without his chocolate bars," Mr. Trello said.

And what happens after the Super Bowl?

Mr. Trello said that the excitement will obviously die down, but that the company is already thinking of other potential tie-ins and specialty shapes. And he imagines that the same idea has been planted in the minds of a few others, who might order specialty bars.

"It's really worked in a marketing way more than I ever thought it would," he said. "It's just going to open all kinds of doors."