Kit Kat is this year 75 years old. Since its launch in 1935, Kit Kat has become a favourite chocolate treat the world over thanks to its light wafer texture and delicious chocolate taste.
Kit Kat was first created 75 years ago and launched by Rowntrees Ltd of York, England.
It was later produced by Nestlé which acquired Rowntrees in 1988. The brand quickly gained popularity and spread to the four corners of the globe, and is now available in over 70 countries.
Since the beginning, Kit Kat has been synonymous with having a "break".
The brand's trademark tagline Have a Break, Have a Kit Kat has come to represent much more than just the physical snap of the wafer fingers.
When it was first introduced back in 1935, Kit Kat was called Chocolate Crisp. Kit Kat was supposedly named after the Kit Kat Club, an 18th century Whig literacy club.
As the building had very low ceilings, it could accommodate only paintings which were wide but not too high. In the art world, such paintings became known as Kit Kats. It is therefore conceivable that the humble Kit Kat derived its name from paintings which had to be snapped off to fit into rooms with a low ceiling.
For a short period in its history, the Kit Kat packaging was blue because in World War II, when milk was in short supply, Kit Kat went "dark" for a while, and the blue pack was used to reflect this. In 1947, when milk supplies were back to normal, the red pack returned.
With its vibrant red pack, delicious taste, crispy texture and unique personality, Kit Kat has become a worldwide best seller with over 13 billion fingers sold worldwide every year. Since the original two- and four-finger milk chocolate bars, there have been various additions including the highly popular Chunky, plus flavours including dark, white, orange, mint and Kit Kat Senses.
Today one can buy minis, and multipacks and in certain parts of the world you'll find other alternatives, such as a three-finger pack in the Middle East and a giant finger in Japan. Kit Kat bars are produced in 15 countries by Nestlé including UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Algeria, South Africa, Germany, Japan, China, Malaysia, India, Turkey, Venezuela and Bulgaria.
In Malta, Kit Kat's 75th anniversary is currently being celebrated through a number of consumer promotions which kicked off last month. The first one, which is currently underway, consists of a free ceramic collectable mug with a lid which is given away with every 12 Kit Kat wrappers. The mugs have a unique collectable element since they portray three different characters in a break situation and form part of a set of three mugs.
Did you know?
• Every five minutes enough Kit Kat is manufactured to out-stack the Eiffel Tower, while one year's production would stretch around the London underground more than 350 times.
• At full speed Kit Kat Chunky can be wrapped at the blistering pace of 0.03 seconds.
• A three-finger Kit Kat is produced for the Middle East to match a denomination of the local currency so it costs just one coin. In Japan an extra long single-finger version is sold as Kit Kat Stick.