February 8, 2019 • 39 mins
This iconic, sharable British candy bar is consumed at a rate of billions per year in hundreds of flavors around the world. Anney and Lauren chat about Kit Kat’s history, psychology, and structural science.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hello, and welcome to Savor. I'm any Rees and I'm
Lauren voc Obam, and today we're talking about the kit
Cat bar, Yeah, which actually is a bar, like a
place to go and purchase alcohol, and you can buy
kit Cat martini. But we're actually talking about not that
the candy bar, yes, which is also probably a thing
now that I think about it. We're talking about the candy, Yes, KitKat,
(00:31):
that one the candy. We're also talking about a couple
of clubs like bars clubs, but that's later. Yeah, that's
later and not as exciting as it might sound, because
I'm picturing like Brave Lights, everyone's got kick Kat bars
in your hand. I mean, living it up because kick
(00:51):
Cats are one of my favorite candies. I've mentioned before.
They were one of my fabulous five that I have
to find every year at Halloween or else the world
will end. Okay, I have to find them. They can't
be I can't purchase must I see you. It's the
only way to satisfy the candy gods. And it's like
Cabin in the Woods, but with exactly Got You. It's
(01:13):
exactly like that. Um and I think last year time
it was all messed up in my head, but I
think it was like last year or two years ago.
I went to Japan and um, I went out of
my way to go find the kit Cat store because,
as a lot of you probably know, and as we're
going to talk about, kickats are very popular in Japan.
They are, they are, And you brought me back some
(01:33):
amazing flavors of kit cats. I still have some like
squirreled away in my desk and like when I'm when
I really need like a pick me up, I'm just like, yes,
I should eat one of these when you need a break,
When I need a break. Oh, we're terrible. Um. And
there was this place that had a Kitcat cuissant in
Japan and oh what was it? What was it? Like?
It was croissant and then just smushed up kid cats
(01:59):
in the center. Wow that's okay, I'm going to be
like dreaming of that now. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely took
a long route to find one, but I did. Um.
And if you're wondering why we're talking about kay cats,
although a lot of our episodes would give no real
reason zero, because it's kind of a way to celebrate
(02:22):
Lunar New Year, um, which the official start date is
February five, I believe, and it's the year of the Pig. Yeah. Yeah, cool.
But all of this brings us to our question, Okay cats,
what are they? Well? Kit cats are a chocolate based confection.
(02:42):
They consist of a three wafer cookie stack with a
cream filling between the wafers, and the whole stack is
dredged in chocolate. Each coated stack is about the size
of like a skinny squared off human finger, and the
flavor of the wafers and filling and coding can vary.
But the piece de resists about this candy is that
those fingers are almost always connected along their long ends
(03:06):
in groups of twos or fours by a base, sort
of like the sole of a shoe. If your shoes
were both connected to each other by a single soul,
that would be difficult. But follow with me here. Yeah,
instead of Rubbert's chocolate coating, so you can break the
pieces off individually. M yeah, there you go. You can
share them that way or nibble on each little bar individually,
(03:29):
and the result is an airy, crispy, crunchy confection that
is sweet and rich without feeling too heavy. Yeah, and
brace yourself for those next part, folks. The cream filling
in the layers between the wafers, which the brand by
the way, calls the choco layer, is made partially of
ground up kit Cat bars. My god, what monstrosity. It
(03:58):
seems that someone at some point realized that broken or
otherwise unsellable bars could be put to use in the filling,
along with some sugar and cocoa liqueur. That makes sense, Yeah,
since save some money, don't waste. Yeah, totally right. I'm
behind that. Some factories also have separate processes to dispose
of other waste product. For example, wafers that aren't up
to stuff might go to local farms as animal feed,
(04:20):
and kit cats are made by baking off large sheets
of wafer in a process that does include yeast by
the way. The wafer sheets are then dredged in cream
and stacked and dredged and stacked, and then cut, dropped
into molds that are already partially filled with chocolate, and
then topped or bottomed I guess with more chocolate to
form that chee soul kind of situation. M in the
(04:44):
University of Manchester did some fun imaging science around Easter
of a bunch of different chocolate candies, and they found
that the chocolate to wafer stuff ratio in a Kitcat
bar is fifty huh okay, yeah, and the researchers. The
researchers commented that the wafer structure is similar to rock
layers that are being studied for petroleum oil and gas extraction.
(05:08):
Kit Cats not being so cool. The shape of each finger,
by the way, is called a pyramidal frustum, a k a.
A pyramid with the pointy top lopped off. Pyramidal frustra.
I think that that is a character in Silent Hill.
That's his scientific name. Oh my goodness it Okay. We're
(05:31):
learning things, discovering secrets, making our own secrets, pyramidal secrets.
I like pyramidal secrets. But what about the name kit
Cat not pyramidal secrets. Pyramidal Secrets should be a show.
I'm just gonna throw that out there. Absolutely. Yeah. It's
a new podcast coming into you from my Heart Media.
(05:52):
It's just gonna be bunch of random facts about pyramids.
I think people will tune in. I would just out
of like this exists, I'll listen to it. Okay, But yes,
the name of kid Cats, so we have actually a lot.
This name has many, many, many possible origin stories, yes,
(06:17):
but the one that you come across the most often
claims that it traces back to a seventeen century literary
club based in London. That this club met at a
pie shop owned by pastry chef Christopher Catling, so it's
a contraction of his name, the kit Cat Club. This
pie shop served mutton pies called kit Cats or possibly not.
(06:42):
We will get into that more in our history section.
And the name we do know is a part of
why this candy is such a big deal in Japan.
It is close to a Japanese phrase for Shirley win
or sure to win or you will surely win. Yeah.
Handing them like kick Cats out to students before exams
is a common practice, and some of them even have
(07:04):
this like little thought bubble yeah, where you can write
a little message yeah, I love it yeah. And they're
a popular gift. Japan makes a lot of regional varieties
for tourists, like Japanese tourists to bring home a small presence.
They come in different shapes to like maple leaves or
mount Fuji, stuff like that. And I ran an account
(07:24):
of a golden trophy handed out to Kickcat Japan's marketing
manager shaped like a kick cat. Yeah, as Annie said,
are kind of alluded to earlier. There are boutiques devoted
to kick cats in Japan. They're called Chocolate Tories, and
from New York Times magazine, these places quote resemble high
end shoe stores. A single ingot to a silky peel
(07:47):
away sheath, stacked in slim boxes and tucked inside ultra
smooth opening doors, which a well dressed multi lingual sales
clerk slides open for you as you browse. Are we
talking about kick cats? So? I'm not sure. It's a
beautiful article. By the way, it's called big in Japan.
Look it up. I love this next fact, and I
think I'm probably one of the few people that gets
(08:08):
excited about things like this. Kitcats are manufactured by both
Nestley and Hershey. Yes, due to a licensing agreement. While
Nestleie owns Kitcat Global, Hershey makes them in the United States.
Just a fun, a fun side story here. I love
licensing agreements. And Lauren knows, because you've got you got
(08:32):
subject to the same thing. Because our our friend um
Noel Brown of Ridiculous History said they don't want you
to know. He recently went on a trip to Universal
and he asked me for tips, and I sent him
pages and pages of stuff, of course, and he was
asking me about something he said he wanted like too
when he got back to go out for jinks when
(08:54):
we could talk about it, and I was like, well,
you're gonna have to let me regale you with a
fascinating tale of licensing and agreement and why Universal has
Marvel characters owned by Disney but not in California. Oh oh,
I can tell you the tale. The listeners are like, no, God,
please anyway. I I find it fascinating. I love this
(09:18):
little this little facts. And here's something else I haven't
really thought about. But of course there is some debate
around how do you eat a kit cat? It's the
proper way to eat a kit cat. Do you break
the fingers and then go one at a time or
do you fight into multiple fingers at once? To me,
that's weird. I don't know. Yeah, I to me like
(09:39):
multiple finger fight. It's like who does that? Exactly? Like
you have to either, to my mind, be completely unfamiliar
with kit cats or just want to watch the world burn.
It's the joker and joker and someone who's never eating
a kit cat. Those are the only two. There have
been a few times y'all have probably seen them. A
(09:59):
photo of people just having taken a bite out of
the whole bar have circulated. One time when a lady
posted this on Twitter of her boyfriend having done that,
like Twitter responded with break up with him? What are
you doing? Um? No? But really there's an area of
design philosophy that this pertains to. It's called affordances, and
(10:20):
the idea is that particular forms invite particular actions, like
like buttons afford pushing handles, afford gripping flaps, afford uncovering
and recovering. And this goes deep, like think about clever
objects like tupperware that snaps together like legos so that
you can stack it in your cabinets, or so that
it stays together in your backpack. If you look around
(10:41):
you probably every single manufactured product that you see has
been designed with affordances in mind to to encourage you
to use that product in a certain way, or to
make it easier or more pleasant to use in some way.
The shape of a kitcap bar affords breaking it into
fingers like into it of lee. When we see a
(11:02):
bite taken out across multiple fingers, it feels wrong because
it's both ignoring the social construct of a kit cat
bar as we understand it from advertising and marketing, and
also the like object determinism of the candy because it
has weak points, it wants you to break those points.
(11:22):
This is deepline. No, oh my gosh. Now I kind
of want to be a rebel in the whole thing,
and then the world will be like that girl, hopefully
not that reaction hanging. That's really cool. Um, I'm going
(11:45):
to appreciate that probably when I have a kick kit
immediately after this. But let's talk about some nutrition. I mean,
it's a candy bar, you know, Okay, One I went
digging through our like candy bit at the office to
find a whole bar to to check the nutrition label
to make sure that my information was completely correct. That's
(12:05):
the only reason, purely for research. One four finger bar
of D standard United States type, which weighs about one
point five ounces or forty two grams, contains of your
daily recommended intake of saturated fat and twenty two grams
of sugar. I compared it to a standard sized milk
chocolate Hershey's bar, and bizarrely, they're almost nutritionally identical. The
(12:28):
kit Cat has half as much cholesterol and the Hershey's
has more like vitamin and mineral content. But other than that,
it's basically nutritionally the same. Oh that is surprising, I know, right,
it's going on kid kat And there are recipes online
for making your own, usually using butter crackers like club
crackers you know as the as the wafer layer, which
(12:51):
I find very fascinating. I think I tried to make
my own butter fingers once and it was the same.
It didn't work out. Yeah, let's look at some numbers.
Kit Cats sales increased by fifty percent between As of a,
hundred and ninety two million kit Cats are sold in
(13:14):
the United States every year. In Japan they sell about
four million mini kit cats like two short fingers individually
wrapped every day, four million a day. Wow. And in Britain,
the company I think it's the most popular chocolate bar
in Britain and the company says that forty seven kit
Cats are eaten every minute WHOA. In total, they estimate
(13:37):
that they sell more than seventeen point six billion fingers
of kit cats per year. It is sold in over
a hundred countries. And yes, the basic recipe does very
slightly country to country at different cacao beans, including sometimes
like fancy pink cocow, different milks for the chocolate, all
that kind of noise, and the recipe has changed over
(13:57):
the years. The current versions are all are and contain
more sugar than their predecessors, which I learned about because
a thrift or antique store shopkeeper found a twenty two
year old kick catbar buried in a box of tableware
that someone dropped off at her shop unearth treasure. I
know that it could sell or you know, decent amount
(14:19):
five bucks? Ye, who knows in a museum? It's true?
What am I faking? What's wrong with me? Capitalism? Alright?
So flavors, Yes, I'm actually surprised at how much differentiation
I found between the number of different flavors, because I'm
one place I saw on different flavors. In another place,
(14:43):
I read that Japan alone has over two hundred flavors,
or maybe three hundred flavors. I think this might have
to do with like of all time versus yeah or
like seasonally or yeah, um, but in Japan you can
find sabby red bean green tea, cucumber, watermelon soy sauce,
which is the most popular flavor, sweet potato college tater.
(15:09):
I have no idea what that means. I think it
was like a maybe like a potato chip, Yeah, like
a pater Chotter potato chip or something. I I know
that when I was there, I brought back as souvenirs
with sabby red bean green tea soy sauce. I think
I think you gave me a sake one. Yeah, oh yeah.
(15:30):
They was champagne um and sweet potato. That one was
hard to find. I was determined to find the sweet
potato one. Um. I think there's specifically the purple sweet potato.
Yeah yeah, grape strawberry cheesecake, passion fruit, plum wine, roasted tea,
macha mo chi, sublime bitter. That's a dark chocolate. Tokyo banana,
(15:52):
which is the other which is popular. Yeah. Yeah, it's
a little individually wrapped us snack cake that is so good.
He brought me one of those two, and I was like,
what ambrosia am I eating right now? I was so surprised. Oh,
Japanese banana flavor is so much better than yeah banana flavor.
(16:14):
I don't know what scientists are doing wrong here. It
was really funny because the name is silly, at least
to me. Tokyo banana. No, that's I mean, banana's objective.
And I had never really heard of it, but it
was everywhere in the airport, like everywhere, so I knew
it was a big tourist thing. And then as I
went to the country, people are telling me you need
(16:36):
to bring back to Tokyo banana as a souvenir, and
I kind of shrug, right, and then I'm so glad. Yeah, mmmm,
I love I wish I had known there was a
kid gat flavor of Dya banana. I kind of love that.
And we've talked before on this show. I think it
was in the Edible Gold episode about some of the
(16:57):
super fancy expensive ones. According to Exacts, a new flavor
variety takes about six months to develop, and they're not
always a success, like sports Drink or cough Drop, which
was kind of a marketing thing because it was meant
for soccer fans that it would aid their scratchy throats
(17:18):
after cheering at a game. I feel like maybe I've
eaten one of those, maybe on maybe on snack stuff
with Ben Bolin. I know that I ate some kind
of candy that was meant to be cough drop flavored.
That anyway, cough drop flavor candy. Well. Kit Kat celebrated
their seventy fifth year in Twin d Titan. So let's
(17:41):
take a look at some of the history in those
seventy five years. But first let's take a quick break
for a word. I'm a sponsor and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes,
thank you. The history of the kit Cat goes back
(18:04):
to August twenty nine when the first four fingered wafer
was manufactured in England. This candy, called Round Trees Chocolate Crisp,
was sold in London and Southeast England for three since
a piece. They originally aimed to be as part of
a workers lunch kind of. That's why the shape and
the breaking off from the Round Trees proposal. Quote a
(18:27):
chocolate bar that a man could take to work in
his pack up packed lunch um or as a companion
to a cup of tea. Yeah, like a like a
tea biscuit shirt. Yeah, And the Round Tree brand went
way back. It was named after one Henry Isaac Rowntree,
who opened a grocery store and cocoa foundry in York
in the mid eighteen hundreds, sometimes after the eighteen sixties,
(18:48):
the company started making chocolates and other candies. Round Trees
sold chocolates called kit Cats, but they were not what
we think of as kit cats, and they were quickly
to continued but back to the chocolate crisp. Two years later,
Round Trees marketing director George Harris decided that candy was
(19:08):
in need of a rebrand and the name changed to
kit Cat Chocolate Crisp Um. He had registered kit Cat
Cat with Kay and kit Cat with a Sea back
in nineteen eleven. The rebrand also included the first mention
of break in the copy, and it was inspired by
taking a break for tea, break off a piece, break
(19:29):
for tea. Sure, the story of the name here is
super unclear. I went down a whole rabbit hole. Um, okay,
here are the facts. In the early seventeen hundreds, there
was a late sixteen early seventeen hundreds there was a political,
literary and artistic club in London called the kit Cat
Club that was made up of the most distinguished and
(19:51):
influential Whig Party members of the day fighting for the
authority of Parliament over the monarchy. That's that's it for
the facts, y'all. This is where it gets crazy. Um.
The origin of their name is also super unclear. One
one story goes that the club first met at the
home or shop of a baker by the name of
(20:13):
Christopher Cat K A T T or Cat c A
T or Cat ling Um, and this dude's pies, possibly
mutton pies, were so popular that they received their own nickname,
Kit Cats, with Kit being a short form of Christopher.
Possibly Kit Cat was his nickname first, but the club
ate a lot of these pies, so they adopted it
(20:33):
as their name too. Or possibly there was a baker
named Christopher whose last name doesn't matter, but whose shop
sign displayed a cat in a fiddle, and he was
called Kit for short, and when the club started hanging
out there, they dubbed themselves the Kit Cat Club. Or
maybe it's not of the above. There's an epigram about
(20:54):
how confusing all of this is that was penned by
the famed contemporary mathematician and writer John abbeth Not, and
at some point it was put to music. I'm not
going to sing it because I didn't look up the
tune and that would be terrible. Um. But but here goes.
Whence Deathless kit Cat took his name, A few critics
can unriddle. Some say from pastry cook it came, and
(21:15):
some from cat and fiddle from no trim bows its
name it boasts gray Statesman or green wits, but from
the pell Mill pack of Toasts of Old Cats and
Young Kids, in which old cats and young kids short
for kittens seems to refer to old and young ladies,
who were often the subjects of the club's toasts. But yeah,
(21:37):
dr Abbath not was largely a satirist, so I'm not
sure that this was meant literally. It's confusing, It's a
whole mess um. However, the name came about. The term
was eventually extended to the size of the portraits that
the club had made of its members. That they were
done not of the standard like half length pose hips
(21:58):
up or nor the one quarter head and shoulders pose,
but they were sort of like one third pose waist
up like, usually seated including an arm in a hand
a table cool kids pose exactly. Um, And maybe this
was the standard size for their portraits because the club
ceilings were low anyway that the club was really influential,
(22:19):
and so was the painter, one Sir Godfrey Kneller, and
I mean like the portraits are still on rotation in
the United Kingdom's National Portrait Gallery. So eventually the name
hit Kat was applied to lots of other things going
in and out of fashion for for decades and decades.
Power of the kick Cat. There was also a weekly
(22:40):
magazine in the eighteen hundreds at of Philadelphia called kit Cat,
and during the jazz Age, it was the name of
a popular nightclub in London. Or it could come from
the tagline from Round Trees Wife's sorority keep in Touch,
Kappa Alpha Theta kick Cat. I'm telling you so many
stories out there about this. I love it. Along comes
(23:01):
that massive transformative event, World War two. A shortage of
ingredients in nWo, namely milk, required a recipe change, switching
over to dark chocolate, and another packaging change. The wrapper
color was altered to blue it had been red and
chocolate crisp was dropped just living kit Kat, and the
(23:21):
blue packaging was kind of to differentiate it from like
to make clear this is a different, different product exactly,
and it came with the message quote, because no milk
can be obtained for chocolate manufacture, the chocolate crisp you
knew in peacetime can no longer be made, KitKat is
the nearest possible product at the present time. I mean,
these days dark chocolate kitcat bars are fancy, that's true.
(23:46):
But during World War Two the British government endorsed the
kitcat bar as like a cheap and healthy source of
nourishment according to the Guardian, and when the war ended,
um milk returned to the recipe and the red rapper
also returned in nineteen nine. The kitcat markets started to
grow during the nineteen fifties, expanding to Australia, New Zealand,
(24:08):
Canada and South Africa, all those good Commonwealth countries exactly.
An advertising executive from j w T London, Donald Gillies,
pins the classic advertising line have a break, have a
kick Cat. This was in nineteen fifty seven for the
candies first television ad and the slogan would stick in
Britain up through two thousand four, when it was replaced
(24:30):
with a make the most of your break, which, according
to the brand reinforces cats ownership of key snacking occasions.
He snacking occasion just the most corporate thing I've read
all day, and I love it. I do love it.
I I just read the job posting for drivers of
the oscar Buyer Weenermobile. I didn't let myself read that,
(24:55):
but I got the same email, and I'm really excited
about reading it later. Maybe we can do like a
performative reading. We should. Okay, it's going to be really
hard to get through it without laughing. We are professionals,
we are anyway. Anyway. Another kit Cat innovation comes along
in the sixties with the debut of the two finger multipack. Yeah.
(25:18):
This boosted sales. More and more kit Cats could be
found in stores and in the homes of consumers. The
first color television commercial debut in nineteen sixty nine, and
the company really expanded in the nineteen seventies to places
outside of the Commonwealth, even what a new factory opened
in Hamburg, Germany in the nineteen seventies, increasing Europe's kit
(25:40):
Cat market. If we look at the American market, Hershey
Corporation agreed to license the brand and sell it in
the United States, an agreement with Japanese company Fujia to
sell kit Cats in Japan comes along in nineteen seventy three.
I can't believe that it wasn't the nineteen seventies until
we had kit Cats in America. I mean, not that
I was like around for the previous time, but it
(26:01):
just seems like such an American stable. I know, and
this is probably my American exceptionalism, but I thought it
was invented here. Oh yeah, I assumed that everything was
invented here because I'm terrible. It seemed most like candies
are I guess that's fair. Yeah, but now that I
think about it, is it is a very British kind
of anyway. Yeah. Originally Fujia marketed cats as a distinctively
(26:24):
British candy. Early commercials featured like British soldiers taking a
break with a kick cat bar Oh Lauren, the song
immediately started playing. Oh the song has been in my
head this whole time. It hasn't stopped. No, you know,
that's the price of doing this episode. The first Panda commercial,
(26:45):
Grace TV screens in and if you're like me, and
it was sort of this is a big deal. And
when I saw a picture of it, I do remember
vaguely seeing that panda in conjunction with kick Cats. What
what was the panda was? Did it is just you know,
was he trying to get a kit Cat bar? Of
course no, I don't remember. I just remember like images
(27:06):
of the panda and the kit Cat um branding. So
I do not recall this, but I believe you entirely. Yes, well,
thank you. Uh. Nestle enters the picture in acquiring Round Tree.
A year later, a nest Lee factory opens in Japan.
Over the next decade, new operations opened in China, Malaysia
(27:27):
and India. In nine the UK introduces the first flavor variant,
Kit Cat Orange. Three years later, they launched kit Cat Chunky,
which took off. People loved it. Nick sacs, We're like,
we've got to get this in all the markets. If
(27:47):
you've never seen one of these, Kit Cat Chunky is
a chunky version of the bar. It's more the size
and shape of like a traditional like like Snickers bar
or something like that. And uh with with breaks the
short way across rather than you know, really that's blown wild.
Nestleye buys out the Japanese company manufacturing Kit Cats in
(28:09):
two thousands, and that year the first Japanese specialty flavor
was developed and sold, strawberry with the milk chocolate coating
tinted pink from dehydrated strawberry juice powder m HM. Around
the same time, operations opened in Russia, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Venezuela.
Kitcat Chunkies spread to Central and Eastern Europe. In two
(28:31):
thousand two, Nestlie attempted to trademark the four finger shape
of the bar with the European Union, which turned them down,
saying that consumers do not rely primarily on the bars
shaped to identify it, given that logos and branded packaging
are involved. No trademark for you. They're still appealing the decision,
I think, like the latest rejection was passed down just
(28:52):
last August. It's generally, by the way, difficult to trademark
the shape of products like this, and the legal distinctiveness
of the shape versus it's mere functionality is pretty much
decided at the whim of like the individual government human
who's hearing the case. Also, a Norwegian company sells a
candy bar in nearly the same shape, and they keep
arguing against the trademark in these appeals. I love it.
(29:16):
I do too. I want to. I want to see
like an HBO mini series drama, really gritty about trying
to get the kick Cat par she trademark. It's intense.
It sounds very intense. Going back to that jingle, a
two thousand three Steady found the Kitcat jingle was one
of the most common earworms in the United States. I
(29:39):
believe it. Oh yeah, it's it's something that pops up
in my head like randomly, I'd say, like about once
a month. Yeah. It's like an inside out where they
she keeps getting that that bubblegum randomly. She gets that
bubblegum song. Second. Yeah, that in bagel bites. Oh, I
don't know bagel bites. And I'm pretty sure I don't
want to. Oh, I'm sure you do. Oh no, the
(30:01):
super producer Dylan is nodding maniacally. Kit Cat pop Chalk
launched in two thousand five. And these are these are
bags of like these wee little like square fingertip sized
kit Cat pieces. Oh that could give me in some
serious trouble. Oh yeah, like handfuls. Sure. The following year,
(30:21):
in two thousand six, KitKat introduced Guideline Daily Amounts g
d a S on the front of their packaging, making
them one of the first companies in the UK and
Ireland to do so. That's a little like basic nutritional information. Yeah,
it's right there on the top. It's nice. Yeah, it
was nice. I do I like it. In two thousand seven,
kit Cat Singles launched in Canada. Those are individually wrapped
(30:43):
like single fingers. And then in two thous eight, kit
Cat Senses launched in Canada in Europe, and uh, what
these are boxes of of those individually wrapped single fingers.
The boxes like fold open into sort of like decorative
irving bowls, and uh, the bars look like I haven't
had them, but they look like they're made with slightly
(31:04):
thicker cookie layers rather than the wafers. And there's still
a stack of three and then a layer of like
semi solid filling on top. Like they're taller, um, like chocolate,
hazelnut or salted caramel. So it's a treat for your senses,
eye your eyes, I suppose. Yeah. In Android named it's
(31:30):
four point four version operating system kit Cat, and in
her she began building an expansion of its plant in Hazelton, Pennsylvania,
a sixty million dollar expansion for a new manufacturing line
devoted entirely to kit cats or. She stated that they
think kit Cats will be their next one billion dollar
global brand after Resea's, my other favorite. Before the expansion,
(31:55):
the factory was making two hundred and forty thousand Kit
Cats per day. After it was up to They're also
planning on bringing their strawberry flavor to the United States.
Oh wow, I guess that's true. We don't really have
other flavor flavors. Uh. Yeah, well that's exciting. It is
(32:17):
also as at some Kit Cat chocolate tories in Japan,
you can order custom liquid nitrogen cooled Kit Cat confections,
picking from a variety of base bar flavors and then
weird toppings. Um that they then just like cool with
liquid nitrogen in front of you. I'm not sure why,
but yeah, they serve you a single finger with toppings
(32:40):
for something like six or seven bucks apiece. Oh my goodness,
me innovation, Kit Cat innovation. I kind of like you
you were mentioning when describing these I was trying to find.
I was at a Kyoto train station, which is this enormous,
enormous train station like complex, and I knew there was
(33:03):
a Kit Cat place in there, and I walked around
for like over an hour trying to find it. I've
heard that they are troubling to find, yes, and I
think part of it is this. I was thinking it
would look I don't know, it would be clear this
is the kit Cat place. It kind of looks like
how I imagine either an upscale like perfume store, like jewelry.
(33:29):
It has that vibe maybe like like apple or something
like that. Yeah, it's like all everything in there is
kind of gold, and it's got like a gelato case
kit Cats. And then so like they were mostly women.
They would come up and they would like open this
really fancy case and there's a kick Cat and there's
(33:52):
like a single kid cat on a pillow. Oh man.
It took me a long time to find it because
I think I walked by it several times didn't realize. Yeah.
I think they're also frequently paired with because since nest
Lee owns that branch with them with like nest Cafe,
like like cafe kind of situations. So yeah, and they're
just called I think, like I don't know if they
(34:12):
always have the kit Cat branding on the side. I
think sometimes it's just called chocolate Tory. I think so.
I don't think it said kit Cat anywhere I found it.
I'm happy I did. I'm happy that you did too. Yeah,
surprisingly a lot to say about kit cats. I went,
I went real deep on this one, guys, Like I
(34:33):
was afraid I was never going to resurface. It's like
it's kid Cat, the one that finally sinks me, Lauren
to just eat kit Cat. Now alone in the corner,
singing the jingle that sounds like a nightmare. Oh well,
I'm glad that didn't happen to you, Lauren. What if
it's happening right now? What if I'm still there? Paradox?
(34:58):
I was hoping this wouldn't happen. We'd better go to
an ad break and then do some listener mail. And
we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, and I'm
back from the kit Cat paradox. I think listeners have
(35:19):
no knowing how long you were gone. Oh it's been indulging.
It feels like ages, it does anyway. Anyway, we are
back with listener mail, Listener mail listener. Now. Yeah, yeah,
(35:44):
I apologize to everybody that is in your head. Now
you're in the same boat with us. Jasmine wrote, I
am an avid ranch hater discussing the dressing, not ranches.
Probably not, probably not, maybe both? Who knows. The flavor
is gross and the texture is worse. As you mentioned
(36:04):
in the podcast, the condiment is very big in the
South and Midwest. Being from the South, I would see
other people devour ranch like it was the best thing. Ever.
It was not until I moved to Missouri, peak midwestern
state that I realized what a huge deal it is.
I remember my second week of being in St. Louis,
I was told there is a place called Twisted Ranch.
(36:25):
The entire restaurant dedicated to ranch and it's many variations.
Every single ite on all caps has ranch in it
in some form or fashion, and rich flights, much like
beer and wine flights, are available. I have never been,
and we'll never go. But that was all I could
think about listening to the episode. Yeah, we mentioned that
(36:45):
in our episode, but I had to include ranch flights
like that is something that's a whole thing. It is.
I got you get your garlic ranch you're having there
is got your fireballed of follow it up? Oh. Megan wrote,
(37:05):
I also dislike ice in my drinks, and the talk
of getting drinks straight up reminded me of an episode
of an old Eliza Douscu show called True Calling. Oh.
I remember that show that was great, where Eliza's character
worked in a morgue and repeated days to solve crimes
like you do. In this episode, five men die at
a party, so when she goes back, she poses as
the bartender there. It turns out spoilers, there was a
(37:27):
sixth man who kept asking for his drinks straight up,
and Aliza figures out it was because he poison into
the ice, and she gets him to confess by telling
him that even though there were no ice cubes in
the final drink, she did swirl some around to chill
the glass before serving, So he's been poisoned to Oh
that's great. Yeah, I I wanted to include this because
(37:50):
you ended that episode with all the pop culture kind
of horror, and this made me think of a game
I used to be so in love with I've called
Mine Trap. Did you ever play mind Trap? Oh? I remember,
I can picture the logo, but I don't think I
ever played it. It was basically just riddle game, um,
(38:12):
and we had it at the place that my family
would go near beach um and we found it like
it wasn't ours the house, and so on rainy days
we would just play it and um me and my
little brother and my friend Katie, and almost like half
the time the murder weapon was ice. It was almost
(38:34):
always is related because it would like melt, there's no
proof of it. My friend Katie would get so mad
because she's like, they're just they're making things up. No
one would ever do this. It's a riddle, Katie. It's
a hypothetical situation. It is. But the teke of Shadow,
(38:55):
you know, he's always getting into some trouble. He was
the kid like they were character is that showed up
all the time? Shadow shady you know? Okay, m well, well,
always think about always always consider the ice. When you're
thinking about a mystery, Always consider the ice. It's a great,
(39:16):
great little slogan, piece of advice. It's a good piece
to end it on. It is. It is. Thank you
to both of them for writing in. If you would
like to write to us, you can Our email is
hello at saber pod dot com, or you can find
us on social media. We are on Twitter, Instagram, and
Facebook at saver Pod. We do hope to hear from you.
Thank you, as always to our superproducers Dylan Fagan and
(39:38):
Andrew Howard. Thank you to you for listening, and we
hope that lots more good things are coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to Savor. I'm any Rees and I'm
Lauren voc Obam, and today we're talking about the kit
Cat bar, Yeah, which actually is a bar, like a
place to go and purchase alcohol, and you can buy
kit Cat martini. But we're actually talking about not that
the candy bar, yes, which is also probably a thing
now that I think about it. We're talking about the candy, Yes, KitKat,
(00:31):
that one the candy. We're also talking about a couple
of clubs like bars clubs, but that's later. Yeah, that's
later and not as exciting as it might sound, because
I'm picturing like Brave Lights, everyone's got kick Kat bars
in your hand. I mean, living it up because kick
(00:51):
Cats are one of my favorite candies. I've mentioned before.
They were one of my fabulous five that I have
to find every year at Halloween or else the world
will end. Okay, I have to find them. They can't
be I can't purchase must I see you. It's the
only way to satisfy the candy gods. And it's like
Cabin in the Woods, but with exactly Got You. It's
(01:13):
exactly like that. Um and I think last year time
it was all messed up in my head, but I
think it was like last year or two years ago.
I went to Japan and um, I went out of
my way to go find the kit Cat store because,
as a lot of you probably know, and as we're
going to talk about, kickats are very popular in Japan.
They are, they are, And you brought me back some
(01:33):
amazing flavors of kit cats. I still have some like
squirreled away in my desk and like when I'm when
I really need like a pick me up, I'm just like, yes,
I should eat one of these when you need a break,
When I need a break. Oh, we're terrible. Um. And
there was this place that had a Kitcat cuissant in
Japan and oh what was it? What was it? Like?
It was croissant and then just smushed up kid cats
(01:59):
in the center. Wow that's okay, I'm going to be
like dreaming of that now. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely took
a long route to find one, but I did. Um.
And if you're wondering why we're talking about kay cats,
although a lot of our episodes would give no real
reason zero, because it's kind of a way to celebrate
(02:22):
Lunar New Year, um, which the official start date is
February five, I believe, and it's the year of the Pig. Yeah. Yeah, cool.
But all of this brings us to our question, Okay cats,
what are they? Well? Kit cats are a chocolate based confection.
(02:42):
They consist of a three wafer cookie stack with a
cream filling between the wafers, and the whole stack is
dredged in chocolate. Each coated stack is about the size
of like a skinny squared off human finger, and the
flavor of the wafers and filling and coding can vary.
But the piece de resists about this candy is that
those fingers are almost always connected along their long ends
(03:06):
in groups of twos or fours by a base, sort
of like the sole of a shoe. If your shoes
were both connected to each other by a single soul,
that would be difficult. But follow with me here. Yeah,
instead of Rubbert's chocolate coating, so you can break the
pieces off individually. M yeah, there you go. You can
share them that way or nibble on each little bar individually,
(03:29):
and the result is an airy, crispy, crunchy confection that
is sweet and rich without feeling too heavy. Yeah, and
brace yourself for those next part, folks. The cream filling
in the layers between the wafers, which the brand by
the way, calls the choco layer, is made partially of
ground up kit Cat bars. My god, what monstrosity. It
(03:58):
seems that someone at some point realized that broken or
otherwise unsellable bars could be put to use in the filling,
along with some sugar and cocoa liqueur. That makes sense, Yeah,
since save some money, don't waste. Yeah, totally right. I'm
behind that. Some factories also have separate processes to dispose
of other waste product. For example, wafers that aren't up
to stuff might go to local farms as animal feed,
(04:20):
and kit cats are made by baking off large sheets
of wafer in a process that does include yeast by
the way. The wafer sheets are then dredged in cream
and stacked and dredged and stacked, and then cut, dropped
into molds that are already partially filled with chocolate, and
then topped or bottomed I guess with more chocolate to
form that chee soul kind of situation. M in the
(04:44):
University of Manchester did some fun imaging science around Easter
of a bunch of different chocolate candies, and they found
that the chocolate to wafer stuff ratio in a Kitcat
bar is fifty huh okay, yeah, and the researchers. The
researchers commented that the wafer structure is similar to rock
layers that are being studied for petroleum oil and gas extraction.
(05:08):
Kit Cats not being so cool. The shape of each finger,
by the way, is called a pyramidal frustum, a k a.
A pyramid with the pointy top lopped off. Pyramidal frustra.
I think that that is a character in Silent Hill.
That's his scientific name. Oh my goodness it Okay. We're
(05:31):
learning things, discovering secrets, making our own secrets, pyramidal secrets.
I like pyramidal secrets. But what about the name kit
Cat not pyramidal secrets. Pyramidal Secrets should be a show.
I'm just gonna throw that out there. Absolutely. Yeah. It's
a new podcast coming into you from my Heart Media.
(05:52):
It's just gonna be bunch of random facts about pyramids.
I think people will tune in. I would just out
of like this exists, I'll listen to it. Okay, But yes,
the name of kid Cats, so we have actually a lot.
This name has many, many, many possible origin stories, yes,
(06:17):
but the one that you come across the most often
claims that it traces back to a seventeen century literary
club based in London. That this club met at a
pie shop owned by pastry chef Christopher Catling, so it's
a contraction of his name, the kit Cat Club. This
pie shop served mutton pies called kit Cats or possibly not.
(06:42):
We will get into that more in our history section.
And the name we do know is a part of
why this candy is such a big deal in Japan.
It is close to a Japanese phrase for Shirley win
or sure to win or you will surely win. Yeah.
Handing them like kick Cats out to students before exams
is a common practice, and some of them even have
(07:04):
this like little thought bubble yeah, where you can write
a little message yeah, I love it yeah. And they're
a popular gift. Japan makes a lot of regional varieties
for tourists, like Japanese tourists to bring home a small presence.
They come in different shapes to like maple leaves or
mount Fuji, stuff like that. And I ran an account
(07:24):
of a golden trophy handed out to Kickcat Japan's marketing
manager shaped like a kick cat. Yeah, as Annie said,
are kind of alluded to earlier. There are boutiques devoted
to kick cats in Japan. They're called Chocolate Tories, and
from New York Times magazine, these places quote resemble high
end shoe stores. A single ingot to a silky peel
(07:47):
away sheath, stacked in slim boxes and tucked inside ultra
smooth opening doors, which a well dressed multi lingual sales
clerk slides open for you as you browse. Are we
talking about kick cats? So? I'm not sure. It's a
beautiful article. By the way, it's called big in Japan.
Look it up. I love this next fact, and I
think I'm probably one of the few people that gets
(08:08):
excited about things like this. Kitcats are manufactured by both
Nestley and Hershey. Yes, due to a licensing agreement. While
Nestleie owns Kitcat Global, Hershey makes them in the United States.
Just a fun, a fun side story here. I love
licensing agreements. And Lauren knows, because you've got you got
(08:32):
subject to the same thing. Because our our friend um
Noel Brown of Ridiculous History said they don't want you
to know. He recently went on a trip to Universal
and he asked me for tips, and I sent him
pages and pages of stuff, of course, and he was
asking me about something he said he wanted like too
when he got back to go out for jinks when
(08:54):
we could talk about it, and I was like, well,
you're gonna have to let me regale you with a
fascinating tale of licensing and agreement and why Universal has
Marvel characters owned by Disney but not in California. Oh oh,
I can tell you the tale. The listeners are like, no, God,
please anyway. I I find it fascinating. I love this
(09:18):
little this little facts. And here's something else I haven't
really thought about. But of course there is some debate
around how do you eat a kit cat? It's the
proper way to eat a kit cat. Do you break
the fingers and then go one at a time or
do you fight into multiple fingers at once? To me,
that's weird. I don't know. Yeah, I to me like
(09:39):
multiple finger fight. It's like who does that? Exactly? Like
you have to either, to my mind, be completely unfamiliar
with kit cats or just want to watch the world burn.
It's the joker and joker and someone who's never eating
a kit cat. Those are the only two. There have
been a few times y'all have probably seen them. A
(09:59):
photo of people just having taken a bite out of
the whole bar have circulated. One time when a lady
posted this on Twitter of her boyfriend having done that,
like Twitter responded with break up with him? What are
you doing? Um? No? But really there's an area of
design philosophy that this pertains to. It's called affordances, and
(10:20):
the idea is that particular forms invite particular actions, like
like buttons afford pushing handles, afford gripping flaps, afford uncovering
and recovering. And this goes deep, like think about clever
objects like tupperware that snaps together like legos so that
you can stack it in your cabinets, or so that
it stays together in your backpack. If you look around
(10:41):
you probably every single manufactured product that you see has
been designed with affordances in mind to to encourage you
to use that product in a certain way, or to
make it easier or more pleasant to use in some way.
The shape of a kitcap bar affords breaking it into
fingers like into it of lee. When we see a
(11:02):
bite taken out across multiple fingers, it feels wrong because
it's both ignoring the social construct of a kit cat
bar as we understand it from advertising and marketing, and
also the like object determinism of the candy because it
has weak points, it wants you to break those points.
(11:22):
This is deepline. No, oh my gosh. Now I kind
of want to be a rebel in the whole thing,
and then the world will be like that girl, hopefully
not that reaction hanging. That's really cool. Um, I'm going
(11:45):
to appreciate that probably when I have a kick kit
immediately after this. But let's talk about some nutrition. I mean,
it's a candy bar, you know, Okay, One I went
digging through our like candy bit at the office to
find a whole bar to to check the nutrition label
to make sure that my information was completely correct. That's
(12:05):
the only reason, purely for research. One four finger bar
of D standard United States type, which weighs about one
point five ounces or forty two grams, contains of your
daily recommended intake of saturated fat and twenty two grams
of sugar. I compared it to a standard sized milk
chocolate Hershey's bar, and bizarrely, they're almost nutritionally identical. The
(12:28):
kit Cat has half as much cholesterol and the Hershey's
has more like vitamin and mineral content. But other than that,
it's basically nutritionally the same. Oh that is surprising, I know, right,
it's going on kid kat And there are recipes online
for making your own, usually using butter crackers like club
crackers you know as the as the wafer layer, which
(12:51):
I find very fascinating. I think I tried to make
my own butter fingers once and it was the same.
It didn't work out. Yeah, let's look at some numbers.
Kit Cats sales increased by fifty percent between As of a,
hundred and ninety two million kit Cats are sold in
(13:14):
the United States every year. In Japan they sell about
four million mini kit cats like two short fingers individually
wrapped every day, four million a day. Wow. And in Britain,
the company I think it's the most popular chocolate bar
in Britain and the company says that forty seven kit
Cats are eaten every minute WHOA. In total, they estimate
(13:37):
that they sell more than seventeen point six billion fingers
of kit cats per year. It is sold in over
a hundred countries. And yes, the basic recipe does very
slightly country to country at different cacao beans, including sometimes
like fancy pink cocow, different milks for the chocolate, all
that kind of noise, and the recipe has changed over
(13:57):
the years. The current versions are all are and contain
more sugar than their predecessors, which I learned about because
a thrift or antique store shopkeeper found a twenty two
year old kick catbar buried in a box of tableware
that someone dropped off at her shop unearth treasure. I
know that it could sell or you know, decent amount
(14:19):
five bucks? Ye, who knows in a museum? It's true?
What am I faking? What's wrong with me? Capitalism? Alright?
So flavors, Yes, I'm actually surprised at how much differentiation
I found between the number of different flavors, because I'm
one place I saw on different flavors. In another place,
(14:43):
I read that Japan alone has over two hundred flavors,
or maybe three hundred flavors. I think this might have
to do with like of all time versus yeah or
like seasonally or yeah, um, but in Japan you can
find sabby red bean green tea, cucumber, watermelon soy sauce,
which is the most popular flavor, sweet potato college tater.
(15:09):
I have no idea what that means. I think it
was like a maybe like a potato chip, Yeah, like
a pater Chotter potato chip or something. I I know
that when I was there, I brought back as souvenirs
with sabby red bean green tea soy sauce. I think
I think you gave me a sake one. Yeah, oh yeah.
(15:30):
They was champagne um and sweet potato. That one was
hard to find. I was determined to find the sweet
potato one. Um. I think there's specifically the purple sweet potato.
Yeah yeah, grape strawberry cheesecake, passion fruit, plum wine, roasted tea,
macha mo chi, sublime bitter. That's a dark chocolate. Tokyo banana,
(15:52):
which is the other which is popular. Yeah. Yeah, it's
a little individually wrapped us snack cake that is so good.
He brought me one of those two, and I was like,
what ambrosia am I eating right now? I was so surprised. Oh,
Japanese banana flavor is so much better than yeah banana flavor.
(16:14):
I don't know what scientists are doing wrong here. It
was really funny because the name is silly, at least
to me. Tokyo banana. No, that's I mean, banana's objective.
And I had never really heard of it, but it
was everywhere in the airport, like everywhere, so I knew
it was a big tourist thing. And then as I
went to the country, people are telling me you need
(16:36):
to bring back to Tokyo banana as a souvenir, and
I kind of shrug, right, and then I'm so glad. Yeah, mmmm,
I love I wish I had known there was a
kid gat flavor of Dya banana. I kind of love that.
And we've talked before on this show. I think it
was in the Edible Gold episode about some of the
(16:57):
super fancy expensive ones. According to Exacts, a new flavor
variety takes about six months to develop, and they're not
always a success, like sports Drink or cough Drop, which
was kind of a marketing thing because it was meant
for soccer fans that it would aid their scratchy throats
(17:18):
after cheering at a game. I feel like maybe I've
eaten one of those, maybe on maybe on snack stuff
with Ben Bolin. I know that I ate some kind
of candy that was meant to be cough drop flavored.
That anyway, cough drop flavor candy. Well. Kit Kat celebrated
their seventy fifth year in Twin d Titan. So let's
(17:41):
take a look at some of the history in those
seventy five years. But first let's take a quick break
for a word. I'm a sponsor and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes,
thank you. The history of the kit Cat goes back
(18:04):
to August twenty nine when the first four fingered wafer
was manufactured in England. This candy, called Round Trees Chocolate Crisp,
was sold in London and Southeast England for three since
a piece. They originally aimed to be as part of
a workers lunch kind of. That's why the shape and
the breaking off from the Round Trees proposal. Quote a
(18:27):
chocolate bar that a man could take to work in
his pack up packed lunch um or as a companion
to a cup of tea. Yeah, like a like a
tea biscuit shirt. Yeah, And the Round Tree brand went
way back. It was named after one Henry Isaac Rowntree,
who opened a grocery store and cocoa foundry in York
in the mid eighteen hundreds, sometimes after the eighteen sixties,
(18:48):
the company started making chocolates and other candies. Round Trees
sold chocolates called kit Cats, but they were not what
we think of as kit cats, and they were quickly
to continued but back to the chocolate crisp. Two years later,
Round Trees marketing director George Harris decided that candy was
(19:08):
in need of a rebrand and the name changed to
kit Cat Chocolate Crisp Um. He had registered kit Cat
Cat with Kay and kit Cat with a Sea back
in nineteen eleven. The rebrand also included the first mention
of break in the copy, and it was inspired by
taking a break for tea, break off a piece, break
(19:29):
for tea. Sure, the story of the name here is
super unclear. I went down a whole rabbit hole. Um, okay,
here are the facts. In the early seventeen hundreds, there
was a late sixteen early seventeen hundreds there was a political,
literary and artistic club in London called the kit Cat
Club that was made up of the most distinguished and
(19:51):
influential Whig Party members of the day fighting for the
authority of Parliament over the monarchy. That's that's it for
the facts, y'all. This is where it gets crazy. Um.
The origin of their name is also super unclear. One
one story goes that the club first met at the
home or shop of a baker by the name of
(20:13):
Christopher Cat K A T T or Cat c A
T or Cat ling Um, and this dude's pies, possibly
mutton pies, were so popular that they received their own nickname,
Kit Cats, with Kit being a short form of Christopher.
Possibly Kit Cat was his nickname first, but the club
ate a lot of these pies, so they adopted it
(20:33):
as their name too. Or possibly there was a baker
named Christopher whose last name doesn't matter, but whose shop
sign displayed a cat in a fiddle, and he was
called Kit for short, and when the club started hanging
out there, they dubbed themselves the Kit Cat Club. Or
maybe it's not of the above. There's an epigram about
(20:54):
how confusing all of this is that was penned by
the famed contemporary mathematician and writer John abbeth Not, and
at some point it was put to music. I'm not
going to sing it because I didn't look up the
tune and that would be terrible. Um. But but here goes.
Whence Deathless kit Cat took his name, A few critics
can unriddle. Some say from pastry cook it came, and
(21:15):
some from cat and fiddle from no trim bows its
name it boasts gray Statesman or green wits, but from
the pell Mill pack of Toasts of Old Cats and
Young Kids, in which old cats and young kids short
for kittens seems to refer to old and young ladies,
who were often the subjects of the club's toasts. But yeah,
(21:37):
dr Abbath not was largely a satirist, so I'm not
sure that this was meant literally. It's confusing, It's a
whole mess um. However, the name came about. The term
was eventually extended to the size of the portraits that
the club had made of its members. That they were
done not of the standard like half length pose hips
(21:58):
up or nor the one quarter head and shoulders pose,
but they were sort of like one third pose waist
up like, usually seated including an arm in a hand
a table cool kids pose exactly. Um, And maybe this
was the standard size for their portraits because the club
ceilings were low anyway that the club was really influential,
(22:19):
and so was the painter, one Sir Godfrey Kneller, and
I mean like the portraits are still on rotation in
the United Kingdom's National Portrait Gallery. So eventually the name
hit Kat was applied to lots of other things going
in and out of fashion for for decades and decades.
Power of the kick Cat. There was also a weekly
(22:40):
magazine in the eighteen hundreds at of Philadelphia called kit Cat,
and during the jazz Age, it was the name of
a popular nightclub in London. Or it could come from
the tagline from Round Trees Wife's sorority keep in Touch,
Kappa Alpha Theta kick Cat. I'm telling you so many
stories out there about this. I love it. Along comes
(23:01):
that massive transformative event, World War two. A shortage of
ingredients in nWo, namely milk, required a recipe change, switching
over to dark chocolate, and another packaging change. The wrapper
color was altered to blue it had been red and
chocolate crisp was dropped just living kit Kat, and the
(23:21):
blue packaging was kind of to differentiate it from like
to make clear this is a different, different product exactly,
and it came with the message quote, because no milk
can be obtained for chocolate manufacture, the chocolate crisp you
knew in peacetime can no longer be made, KitKat is
the nearest possible product at the present time. I mean,
these days dark chocolate kitcat bars are fancy, that's true.
(23:46):
But during World War Two the British government endorsed the
kitcat bar as like a cheap and healthy source of
nourishment according to the Guardian, and when the war ended,
um milk returned to the recipe and the red rapper
also returned in nineteen nine. The kitcat markets started to
grow during the nineteen fifties, expanding to Australia, New Zealand,
(24:08):
Canada and South Africa, all those good Commonwealth countries exactly.
An advertising executive from j w T London, Donald Gillies,
pins the classic advertising line have a break, have a
kick Cat. This was in nineteen fifty seven for the
candies first television ad and the slogan would stick in
Britain up through two thousand four, when it was replaced
(24:30):
with a make the most of your break, which, according
to the brand reinforces cats ownership of key snacking occasions.
He snacking occasion just the most corporate thing I've read
all day, and I love it. I do love it.
I I just read the job posting for drivers of
the oscar Buyer Weenermobile. I didn't let myself read that,
(24:55):
but I got the same email, and I'm really excited
about reading it later. Maybe we can do like a
performative reading. We should. Okay, it's going to be really
hard to get through it without laughing. We are professionals,
we are anyway. Anyway. Another kit Cat innovation comes along
in the sixties with the debut of the two finger multipack. Yeah.
(25:18):
This boosted sales. More and more kit Cats could be
found in stores and in the homes of consumers. The
first color television commercial debut in nineteen sixty nine, and
the company really expanded in the nineteen seventies to places
outside of the Commonwealth, even what a new factory opened
in Hamburg, Germany in the nineteen seventies, increasing Europe's kit
(25:40):
Cat market. If we look at the American market, Hershey
Corporation agreed to license the brand and sell it in
the United States, an agreement with Japanese company Fujia to
sell kit Cats in Japan comes along in nineteen seventy three.
I can't believe that it wasn't the nineteen seventies until
we had kit Cats in America. I mean, not that
I was like around for the previous time, but it
(26:01):
just seems like such an American stable. I know, and
this is probably my American exceptionalism, but I thought it
was invented here. Oh yeah, I assumed that everything was
invented here because I'm terrible. It seemed most like candies
are I guess that's fair. Yeah, but now that I
think about it, is it is a very British kind
of anyway. Yeah. Originally Fujia marketed cats as a distinctively
(26:24):
British candy. Early commercials featured like British soldiers taking a
break with a kick cat bar Oh Lauren, the song
immediately started playing. Oh the song has been in my
head this whole time. It hasn't stopped. No, you know,
that's the price of doing this episode. The first Panda commercial,
(26:45):
Grace TV screens in and if you're like me, and
it was sort of this is a big deal. And
when I saw a picture of it, I do remember
vaguely seeing that panda in conjunction with kick Cats. What
what was the panda was? Did it is just you know,
was he trying to get a kit Cat bar? Of
course no, I don't remember. I just remember like images
(27:06):
of the panda and the kit Cat um branding. So
I do not recall this, but I believe you entirely. Yes, well,
thank you. Uh. Nestle enters the picture in acquiring Round Tree.
A year later, a nest Lee factory opens in Japan.
Over the next decade, new operations opened in China, Malaysia
(27:27):
and India. In nine the UK introduces the first flavor variant,
Kit Cat Orange. Three years later, they launched kit Cat Chunky,
which took off. People loved it. Nick sacs, We're like,
we've got to get this in all the markets. If
(27:47):
you've never seen one of these, Kit Cat Chunky is
a chunky version of the bar. It's more the size
and shape of like a traditional like like Snickers bar
or something like that. And uh with with breaks the
short way across rather than you know, really that's blown wild.
Nestleye buys out the Japanese company manufacturing Kit Cats in
(28:09):
two thousands, and that year the first Japanese specialty flavor
was developed and sold, strawberry with the milk chocolate coating
tinted pink from dehydrated strawberry juice powder m HM. Around
the same time, operations opened in Russia, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Venezuela.
Kitcat Chunkies spread to Central and Eastern Europe. In two
(28:31):
thousand two, Nestlie attempted to trademark the four finger shape
of the bar with the European Union, which turned them down,
saying that consumers do not rely primarily on the bars
shaped to identify it, given that logos and branded packaging
are involved. No trademark for you. They're still appealing the decision,
I think, like the latest rejection was passed down just
(28:52):
last August. It's generally, by the way, difficult to trademark
the shape of products like this, and the legal distinctiveness
of the shape versus it's mere functionality is pretty much
decided at the whim of like the individual government human
who's hearing the case. Also, a Norwegian company sells a
candy bar in nearly the same shape, and they keep
arguing against the trademark in these appeals. I love it.
(29:16):
I do too. I want to. I want to see
like an HBO mini series drama, really gritty about trying
to get the kick Cat par she trademark. It's intense.
It sounds very intense. Going back to that jingle, a
two thousand three Steady found the Kitcat jingle was one
of the most common earworms in the United States. I
(29:39):
believe it. Oh yeah, it's it's something that pops up
in my head like randomly, I'd say, like about once
a month. Yeah. It's like an inside out where they
she keeps getting that that bubblegum randomly. She gets that
bubblegum song. Second. Yeah, that in bagel bites. Oh, I
don't know bagel bites. And I'm pretty sure I don't
want to. Oh, I'm sure you do. Oh no, the
(30:01):
super producer Dylan is nodding maniacally. Kit Cat pop Chalk
launched in two thousand five. And these are these are
bags of like these wee little like square fingertip sized
kit Cat pieces. Oh that could give me in some
serious trouble. Oh yeah, like handfuls. Sure. The following year,
(30:21):
in two thousand six, KitKat introduced Guideline Daily Amounts g
d a S on the front of their packaging, making
them one of the first companies in the UK and
Ireland to do so. That's a little like basic nutritional information. Yeah,
it's right there on the top. It's nice. Yeah, it
was nice. I do I like it. In two thousand seven,
kit Cat Singles launched in Canada. Those are individually wrapped
(30:43):
like single fingers. And then in two thous eight, kit
Cat Senses launched in Canada in Europe, and uh, what
these are boxes of of those individually wrapped single fingers.
The boxes like fold open into sort of like decorative
irving bowls, and uh, the bars look like I haven't
had them, but they look like they're made with slightly
(31:04):
thicker cookie layers rather than the wafers. And there's still
a stack of three and then a layer of like
semi solid filling on top. Like they're taller, um, like chocolate,
hazelnut or salted caramel. So it's a treat for your senses,
eye your eyes, I suppose. Yeah. In Android named it's
(31:30):
four point four version operating system kit Cat, and in
her she began building an expansion of its plant in Hazelton, Pennsylvania,
a sixty million dollar expansion for a new manufacturing line
devoted entirely to kit cats or. She stated that they
think kit Cats will be their next one billion dollar
global brand after Resea's, my other favorite. Before the expansion,
(31:55):
the factory was making two hundred and forty thousand Kit
Cats per day. After it was up to They're also
planning on bringing their strawberry flavor to the United States.
Oh wow, I guess that's true. We don't really have
other flavor flavors. Uh. Yeah, well that's exciting. It is
(32:17):
also as at some Kit Cat chocolate tories in Japan,
you can order custom liquid nitrogen cooled Kit Cat confections,
picking from a variety of base bar flavors and then
weird toppings. Um that they then just like cool with
liquid nitrogen in front of you. I'm not sure why,
but yeah, they serve you a single finger with toppings
(32:40):
for something like six or seven bucks apiece. Oh my goodness,
me innovation, Kit Cat innovation. I kind of like you
you were mentioning when describing these I was trying to find.
I was at a Kyoto train station, which is this enormous,
enormous train station like complex, and I knew there was
(33:03):
a Kit Cat place in there, and I walked around
for like over an hour trying to find it. I've
heard that they are troubling to find, yes, and I
think part of it is this. I was thinking it
would look I don't know, it would be clear this
is the kit Cat place. It kind of looks like
how I imagine either an upscale like perfume store, like jewelry.
(33:29):
It has that vibe maybe like like apple or something
like that. Yeah, it's like all everything in there is
kind of gold, and it's got like a gelato case
kit Cats. And then so like they were mostly women.
They would come up and they would like open this
really fancy case and there's a kick Cat and there's
(33:52):
like a single kid cat on a pillow. Oh man.
It took me a long time to find it because
I think I walked by it several times didn't realize. Yeah.
I think they're also frequently paired with because since nest
Lee owns that branch with them with like nest Cafe,
like like cafe kind of situations. So yeah, and they're
just called I think, like I don't know if they
(34:12):
always have the kit Cat branding on the side. I
think sometimes it's just called chocolate Tory. I think so.
I don't think it said kit Cat anywhere I found it.
I'm happy I did. I'm happy that you did too. Yeah,
surprisingly a lot to say about kit cats. I went,
I went real deep on this one, guys, Like I
(34:33):
was afraid I was never going to resurface. It's like
it's kid Cat, the one that finally sinks me, Lauren
to just eat kit Cat. Now alone in the corner,
singing the jingle that sounds like a nightmare. Oh well,
I'm glad that didn't happen to you, Lauren. What if
it's happening right now? What if I'm still there? Paradox?
(34:58):
I was hoping this wouldn't happen. We'd better go to
an ad break and then do some listener mail. And
we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, and I'm
back from the kit Cat paradox. I think listeners have
(35:19):
no knowing how long you were gone. Oh it's been indulging.
It feels like ages, it does anyway. Anyway, we are
back with listener mail, Listener mail listener. Now. Yeah, yeah,
(35:44):
I apologize to everybody that is in your head. Now
you're in the same boat with us. Jasmine wrote, I
am an avid ranch hater discussing the dressing, not ranches.
Probably not, probably not, maybe both? Who knows. The flavor
is gross and the texture is worse. As you mentioned
(36:04):
in the podcast, the condiment is very big in the
South and Midwest. Being from the South, I would see
other people devour ranch like it was the best thing. Ever.
It was not until I moved to Missouri, peak midwestern
state that I realized what a huge deal it is.
I remember my second week of being in St. Louis,
I was told there is a place called Twisted Ranch.
(36:25):
The entire restaurant dedicated to ranch and it's many variations.
Every single ite on all caps has ranch in it
in some form or fashion, and rich flights, much like
beer and wine flights, are available. I have never been,
and we'll never go. But that was all I could
think about listening to the episode. Yeah, we mentioned that
(36:45):
in our episode, but I had to include ranch flights
like that is something that's a whole thing. It is.
I got you get your garlic ranch you're having there
is got your fireballed of follow it up? Oh. Megan wrote,
(37:05):
I also dislike ice in my drinks, and the talk
of getting drinks straight up reminded me of an episode
of an old Eliza Douscu show called True Calling. Oh.
I remember that show that was great, where Eliza's character
worked in a morgue and repeated days to solve crimes
like you do. In this episode, five men die at
a party, so when she goes back, she poses as
the bartender there. It turns out spoilers, there was a
(37:27):
sixth man who kept asking for his drinks straight up,
and Aliza figures out it was because he poison into
the ice, and she gets him to confess by telling
him that even though there were no ice cubes in
the final drink, she did swirl some around to chill
the glass before serving, So he's been poisoned to Oh
that's great. Yeah, I I wanted to include this because
(37:50):
you ended that episode with all the pop culture kind
of horror, and this made me think of a game
I used to be so in love with I've called
Mine Trap. Did you ever play mind Trap? Oh? I remember,
I can picture the logo, but I don't think I
ever played it. It was basically just riddle game, um,
(38:12):
and we had it at the place that my family
would go near beach um and we found it like
it wasn't ours the house, and so on rainy days
we would just play it and um me and my
little brother and my friend Katie, and almost like half
the time the murder weapon was ice. It was almost
(38:34):
always is related because it would like melt, there's no
proof of it. My friend Katie would get so mad
because she's like, they're just they're making things up. No
one would ever do this. It's a riddle, Katie. It's
a hypothetical situation. It is. But the teke of Shadow,
(38:55):
you know, he's always getting into some trouble. He was
the kid like they were character is that showed up
all the time? Shadow shady you know? Okay, m well, well,
always think about always always consider the ice. When you're
thinking about a mystery, Always consider the ice. It's a great,
(39:16):
great little slogan, piece of advice. It's a good piece
to end it on. It is. It is. Thank you
to both of them for writing in. If you would
like to write to us, you can Our email is
hello at saber pod dot com, or you can find
us on social media. We are on Twitter, Instagram, and
Facebook at saver Pod. We do hope to hear from you.
Thank you, as always to our superproducers Dylan Fagan and
(39:38):
Andrew Howard. Thank you to you for listening, and we
hope that lots more good things are coming your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.