This product was developed as a four-finger wafer crisp, initially launched in London and the South East in September 1935 as 'Rowntree’s Chocolate Crisp' and re-named two years later as KitKat Chocolate Crisp. It became KitKat after the Second World War. No one is sure where the name KitKat came from but it’s thought the famous KitKat Club of the 1920s had some influence.
Within two years of launch, KitKat was established as Rowntree’s leading product, a position that it has maintained ever since. During the war, KitKat was portrayed as a valuable wartime food and advertising described the brand as “What active people need”.
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KitKat 4 Finger
For most of its life, KitKat has appeared in a red and white wrapper. It did, however, change to a blue wrapper in 1945, when it was produced with a plain chocolate covering due to shortages of milk after the war. This blue livery was withdrawn in 1947 when the standard milk chocolate KitKat was reintroduced.
KitKat was first advertised on TV back in 1957 and had its first colour advert in 1967. Famous adverts include the ‘Dancing Panda’ in 1987 and the ‘Have a Break’ adverts in the 90’s. KitKat is produced at the Nestlé Rowntree Factory and in 2004 a massive 39,000 tonnes of KitKat were sold - that's 107 tonnes a day!
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- Over the years KitKat 4 Finger has appeared in Orange and Mint variants and in 2004 we released a Lemon + Yogurt flavour, a Halloween variant, Blood Orange, and Lime flavoured KitKat. A Caramac variant was launched in 2005 and has proved to be our most successful variant to date.
New KitKat 4 Finger Fine Dark
For the dark chocolate lovers, new KitKat 4 Finger Fine Dark uses the finest Cocoa beans to coat each bar in an intensely rich bittersweet dark chocolate. KitKat Fine Dark will also feature the new Foil Fresh packaging. This is a permanent edition to the KitKat range and taps into the growing consumer trend towards dark chocolate.
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The 2 Finger KitKat is the top selling biscuit in the UK
2 FINGER RANGE
2 Finger KitKat is the UK's number one biscuit. The 2 Finger KitKat was launched in the 1930s alongside the 4 Finger variant, and has remained the best-selling biscuit brand ever since. In the beginning, the 2 Finger KitKat was only produced as a milk variant, but is now available in Milk, Mint, Orange and since 2004, premium variants of Dark and White chocolate.
In 2005 there were over 800 million 2 Finger KitKats sold in the UK. That's over 2 million EVERY day!
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KitKat Chunky Original and Peanut Butter
KITKAT CHUNKY
KitKat Chunky (The Big Finger) was first launched in 1999 and was that year's biggest success story. In 2005, we sold 73 million KitKat Chunkys (on average 200,000 each day!).
KitKat Chunky also comes in Minis, Snacksize and a King-Size bar called Big Breaks!
If you laid out a year's production of KitKat Chunky, it would stretch from Land's End to John O'Groats a total of five and a half times!
KitKat Chunky Peanut Butter - you'd be nuts not to try it!
The giant, single-finger version of KitKat was launched as a milk variant and has seen versions of Orange and White chocolate.
In 2006, we launched a new Peanut Butter version of KitKat Chunky. This bar, already sold in many foreign markets, has a smooth layer of Peanut Butter on top of the crisp KitKat wafer and is covered in KitKat Milk chocolate.