Kit Kat (stylised as KitKat in various countries) is a chocolate-covered wafer bar confection created by Rowntree’s of York, United Kingdom, and is now produced globally by Nestlé (which acquired Rowntree’s in 1988), except in the United States, where it is made under licence by the H. B. Reese Candy Company, a division of the Hershey Company (an agreement Rowntree’s first made with Hershey in 1970).
The standard bars consist of two or four pieces composed of three layers of wafer, separated and covered by an outer layer of chocolate. Each finger can be snapped from the bar separately. There are many flavours of Kit Kat, including milk, white, and dark chocolate.
The original four-finger version of the bar was developed after a worker at Rowntree’s York factory put a suggestion in the recommendation box for “a chocolate bar that a man could take to work in his pack up”. It was launched in September 1935 in the UK as Rowntree’s Chocolate Crisp, and the later two-finger version was launched in 1936. It was renamed Kit Kat Chocolate Crisp in 1937, and just Kit Kat after World War II.
Since making its first television appearance in a UK commercial in 1958, the slogan for the Kit Kat in the UK and elsewhere has been “Have a break… have a Kit Kat”. Since 1986 in the U.S., the jingle used in television advertisements has been “Gimme a break, Gimme a break, Break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar!”
When first introduced in the United Kingdom in 1935, the original Rowntree’s Chocolate Crisp bar had a red wrapper, which briefly became blue between 1945 and 1947. The Kit Kat logo was added in 1937. As a result of milk shortages after the end of World War II – a period of rationing in the UK – dark chocolate was used instead of milk chocolate during that period.
Since its introduction into the US in the 1970s, the Hershey’s Kit_Kat packaging and advertising has differed from the branding used in every other country where it was sold. In 2002, Hershey Kit Kats adopted the slanted ellipse logo used worldwide by Nestlé, though the ellipse was red and the text white. The US version of “Kit_Kat Chunky” is known as “Big Kat”.
In the United Kingdom, the product was traditionally wrapped in silver foil and an outer paper band. In 2001 this was changed to flow wrap plastic. Foil and paper wrapping is still used for Kit Kats sold as part of a multipack. In 2020, Kit Kat won the Lausanne Index Prize – Best of Packaging.
