History of Nestle KitKat

Rowntree had been making chocolate in York since the 1860s. 

KitKat 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.

Within two years of launch, KitKat chocolate was established as Rowntree’s leading product a position that it has maintained ever since.

It remained popular in the UK, despite weathering the storm of the Second World War. It became KitKat after the Second World War KitKat was first advertised in TV back in 1957 and had its first color advert in 1967.

In 1988, Nestlé SA acquired Rowntree. Nestle boosted Rowntree’s international presence, selling its brands in territories that had been beyond its reach before.

KitKat which for so many years was the best-selling selling chocolate bar in Britain became a huge seller in India, China and Eastern Europe.

KitKat is produced at the Nestlé Rowntree Factory and in 2004 a massive 39,000 tons of KitKat were sold.

By 2010, KitKat was sold in more countries than any chocolate bar, with 17.6 billion of the chocolate fingers produced very year.
History of Nestle KitKat

Origin and history of chocolate KitKat

British confectioner Joseph Rowntree (1836-1925) of Rowntree’s in York (UK) registered the product names Kit Kat and Kit Cat in the year 1911.

Kit Kat lay dormant as a concept until the 1920s when Rowntree’s first attributers the snappy name to a box of chocolates.

Joseph Rowntree, the son of Quaker grocer. He left school at fourteen, and started working for his father as an apprentice.

He joined his brother, Henry ten years later. Henry running a Cocoa, Chocolate and Chicory factory. 

Joseph took control after his brother died in 1883. The company quickly became an international business. 

During the early twentieth century, Rowntree introduced many new chocolate products but none were successful.

In 1935, Chocolate Crips was launched, under the name ‘Rowntree’s Chocolate Crisp’ and at a cost of 2d.

Manufacture continued into the 1930s. Eventually ‘Black Magic’ and ‘Dairy Box’ brands were introduced and Chocolate Crips was discontinued.

Introduction of the Chocolate Crisps as four finger bar followed a recommendation from a workers at York factory.

In 1937 it was renamed KitKat. It was the company’s most popular and successful chocolate candy.

In the 1930s, the Hershey Company bought rights to manufacture the KitKat bars in America.
Origin and history of chocolate KitKat