KitKat: A chocolate with 300 flavours
If you're a die-hard KitKat fan, Japan has something really unusual to offer your taste buds. This is because in Japan, there are KitKats in lot more different flavours than you will find in India! Grape, soy sauce, cola, baked sweet potato, the list of 300 flavours includes some of the most unusual ones you can even imagine.
Origin of KitKat and their way into Japan
Nestle’s original four-finger bars of KitKat, the KitKat you would’ve surely had, first appeared in the 1930s in the UK and were then exported to other countries in the 1940s. But this chocolate treat with the crispy crunch did not make its way to Japan until the early 1970s.
Since then, it has become somewhat of an obsession in Japan. As one of its campaigns, the company partnered with Japan Post to sell the chocolate in 20,000 post offices and it was immensely successful. KitKat in Japanese is pronounced “kitto katto” which actually sounds very similar to the Japanese phrase “kitto katsu translated as "You will surely win", and could be used as a good luck charm for students ahead of university exams. With its growing popularity, KitKat overtook Meiji Chocolate, Japan’s iconic chocolate brand, as the top-selling confection from 2012 to 2014.
How KitKat became an obsession in Japan
KitKat started as a four-finger bar in Japan in the 70s, but in the 1980s, Nestle expanded to selling family-type KitKat bags which had mini two-finger bars. This became very popular over time. For a limited time, a new flavour was sold as a trial, a strawberry-flavoured KitKat, which proved to be a hit with customers and really flew off the shelves. Looking at the success, Nestle decided to create seasonal, regional and limited flavours of Kit Kat to sell at souvenir shops in airports and train stations in the country.
KitKat Flavours
Since 2000, there have been more than 300 limited-edition seasonal and regional flavours of Kit Kat chocolate bars produced in Japan, many exclusive to the country and not produced elsewhere.
KitKat facts
- KitKat was launched as a snack to go with a cup of tea and was initially advertised as “the biggest little meal” and the “perfect companion to a cup of tea”.
- The typical red and silver colours for KitKat's logo has remained constant in the past, except for period between 1945 and 1947 when the design for KitKat's wrapper was changed to blue to represent the change in recipe due to shortages of fresh milk after the war.
- The size and number of KitKat fingers varies throughout the world. For example, in Australia and New Zealand, there’s a 12-finger Kit Kat Block built for sharing.