Nowadays, candy lovers take having multiple varieties of easily transportable chocolate available at all times for granted. But once upon a time, the idea of having a quick and easy chocolate treat that could be tossed in a lunch pail was pretty revolutionary. Thankfully, one employee at a British confectionery had an idea that led to the birth of one of the most iconic chocolate bars of all time: KitKat.
It was in 1935 that a worker at Rowntree’s factory in York, England, took advantage of his employer’s recent addition of a suggestion box to ask that the company “make a snack that a man could take to work in his pack,” according to Snack History.
This sounded like a good plan to the folks in charge, who set to work developing a 4-finger bar consisting of layers of wafer cake covered in milk chocolate. It was launched in the U.K. as the “Rowntree’s Chocolate Crisp.” Two years later, in 1937, the name was changed to KitKat, a nod to the posh 18th-century Kit Kat Club in London.
KitKat FactoryHeritage Images / Getty Images
A classic formula was born. Unfortunately for fans, their new favorite was forced to go through some temporary changes in 1941, when milk was being rationed during World War II and the recipe changed to dark chocolate. The red packaging was changed to blue. After 1949, however, the milk chocolate ban was lifted and the original KitKat was reintroduced.
KitKat’s pop culture status was really cemented in 1958, when Donald Gillies of the London-based advertising agency JWT came up with the slogan “Have a break, have a KitKat.”
Over the years, KitKat would continue to be marketed as a me-time necessity, as anyone who’s ever had the “Gimme a break, gimme a break, break me off a piece of that KitKat bar” song stuck in their head knows.
“Effective marketing with a consistent message is crucial for continuously winning over consumers across geographies,” said Rouven Lochmüller, KitKat Global Brand Manager in a 2025 press release marking KitKat’s 90th anniversary. “Global campaigns, such as the recently launched ‘Break Better’ campaign which encourages people to have better breaks, is another example of how the ‘have a break’ positioning has remained the cornerstone of the brand, even as it adapts to present-day culture.”
Rowntree’s made a pretty profit from that original factory worker’s idea in 1988, when Nestlé bought the company (including the rights to the KitKat bar) for $4.5 billion.
In the decades since, KitKat has only grown in popularity. It’s now sold all over the world, in over 85 countries. With over 5 billion bars sold annually, KitKat is Nestlé’s leading confectionery brand. In 2016, KitKat became the first global chocolate brand to use 100% sustainable cocoa.
In recent years, KitKat lovers have had a staggering number of options to choose from. There have been a variety of both permanent and limited-edition flavors introduced in the U.S., such as birthday cake and lemon crisp; in Japan, Nestle has experimented with over 300 flavors since 2000, from soy sauce to cough drop to wasabi to apple cider vinegar and many, many more.
Related: In 1941, Forrest Mars Sr. sold his candies exclusively to the U.S. military; 85 years later, 146 billion M&M’s are sold every year
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