Шоколадный батончик Kit Kat с вафлей

Chocolate covered wafer bar

Kit Kat (stylised as KitKat in various countries) is a chocolate covered wafer bar confection created by Rowntree's of York, United Kingdom. It is 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 1986 in the US, 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.
thumb|KitKat logo in the US as of March 2024. 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.

In December 2009, it was announced that the four finger variety of Kit Kat would use Fairtrade chocolate (at least in Britain and Ireland) from January 2010. The Fairtrade Kit Kat promotion was extended to the two finger edition in January 2010. In June 2020, Nestlé announced that KitKat was to end its relationship with the non profit organisation, Fairtrade, instead choosing to source its cocoa for KitKat chocolate bars from farms with a Rainforest Alliance accreditation.

In the first three weeks of Big Brother Series 7 in the UK, Channel 4 conducted a promotion in conjunction with Nestlé to distribute 100 "golden tickets" randomly throughout Kit Kats, in a style reminiscent of the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory story. Members of the public finding these tickets were permitted to use them to give themselves a chance to become a Big Brother housemate and bypass the standard auditions process. Golden ticket holders were invited to a television show where one of them, Susie Verrico, was chosen to enter the House by Aisleyne Horgan Wallace, picking a ball out of a machine at random. This contest caused some controversy, with the Advertising Standards Authority saying that the terms and conditions of the draw should have been made clearer in related advertisements, and that an independent adjudicator should have been present before and during the draw.

In March 2010, Kit Kat was targeted for a boycott by Greenpeace for using palm oil, which the environmental organisation claimed resulted in destruction of forest habitats for orangutans in Indonesia. A YouTube video by Greenpeace went viral and Nestlé announced a partnership with The Forest Trust to establish "responsible sourcing guidelines" and ensure that its products did not have a deforestation footprint. They aimed to achieve a fully sustainable method of palm oil harvesting by 2015. Nestlé stated that 58% of palm oil purchased in 2017 was certified responsibly sourced. By 2023 the figure was 100% with 96% being deforestation free.

Kit Kat filling was revealed to be (or at least contain) crushed up Kit Kat, in BBC 2's Inisde the Factory. Original Kit Kat ingredients unless otherwise stated, listed by decreasing weight: milk chocolate (sugar, milk ingredients, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, whey powder, lactose, soya lecithin, polyglycerol polyricinoleate, natural flavour), wheat flour, sugar, modified palm oil, cocoa, sodium bicarbonate, soya lecithin, yeast, and natural flavour.

Milk chocolate (66%) (sugar, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, dried whole milk, cocoa mass, lactose and proteins from whey, whey powder, emulsifier (sunflower lecithin), butterfat, flavouring), wheat flour, sugar, vegetable fat, cocoa mass, yeast, raising agent (sodium bicarbonate), salt, emulsifier (soya lecithin), flavourings. In 2006, the UK four finger Kit Kat contained 233 dietary calories (kcal) (975 kilojoules). In 2009, the two finger Kit Kat contained 107 calories. In 2013, the UK Kit Kat Chunky contained 247 calories which reduced to 207 calories in 2015. This correlated to a reduction in weight by 19% from 48 g to 40 g.

Hershey's Kit Kat Crisp Wafers in Chocolate contain sugar, wheat flour, cocoa butter, nonfat milk, chocolate, refined palm kernel oil, lactose (milk), milk fat, contains 2% or less of: soy lecithin, PGPR (emulsifier), yeast, artificial flavor, salt, and sodium bicarbonate.

Milk chocolate (sugar, milk ingredients, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, whey powder, lactose, soya lecithin, polyglycerol polyricinoleate, natural flavour), wheat flour, sugar, modified palm oil, cocoa, sodium bicarbonate, soya lecithin, yeast, natural flavour. Dark chocolate: cocoa mass, sugar, wheat flour, palm kernel, palm, coconut and vegetable oils, modified milk ingredients, cocoa butter, sunflower and soy lecithins, yeast, sodium bicarbonate, calcium sulphate, salt, protease, xylanase, natural flavours.