Nestlé UK introduces new KitKat bars made with cocoa from its farmer support initiative
The programme incentivises and enables positive practices on the farm and within the household, including school enrollment, good agricultural practices, and income diversification.
UK – Nestlé has unveiled three chocolate products, KitKat Chunky Funky, KitKat Chunky Duo Salted Caramel and Blue Riband Vanilla, with the KitKat bars crafted using cocoa from Nestlé’s income accelerator programme.
KitKat Chunky Funky features a crispy cocoa wafer wrapped in a luscious swirl of milk chocolate and a white coating, while KitKat Chunky Duo Salted Caramel offers a classic crispy wafer topped with a rich layer of salted caramel filling, all wrapped in a smooth chocolate coating.
Meanwhile, the brand Blue Riband’s new flavour, Vanilla, offers a lighter treat, mixing a smooth vanilla filling with a light wafer in a white coating and coming in at 83 calories per bar.
Commenting on the launch, KitKat Assistant Brand Manager, Rida Ahmed, said, “KitKat Chunky has a fresh look while keeping the delicious crispy wafer and KitKat chocolate that our fans adore. It’s such a fun product, and we can’t wait to see how shoppers react!”
These launches mark some of the brand’s most notable product innovations this year, with credit to the dedicated team at Nestlé’s Research and Development Centre in York. Their creativity and technical expertise continue to drive KitKat’s evolution in taste and sustainability.
Both the new KitKat products are crafted using cocoa from Nestlé’s income accelerator programme, which aims to support cocoa farming families in earning more money, planting more trees, and helping children access education.
Nestlé’s Income Accelerator Programme
Piloted in 2020, but launched fully in January 2022, the Income Accelerator Programme is a family-centred initiative designed to help close the living income gap and reduce child labour risks in West Africa.
The programme incentivises and enables positive practices both on the farm and within the household, including school enrollment, good agricultural practices, agroforestry, and income diversification.
Despite the 2023/2024 cocoa season being one of the most challenging in recent years, marked by poor cocoa harvests due to changing weather patterns, households participating in the programme have seen yields 18% higher than the control group of cocoa farmers not in the programme.
This has resulted in increased total net income, with participating households earning 15% more than their peers.
Laurent Freixe, CEO of Nestlé, stated, “Our income accelerator programme is one of our key sustainability initiatives and we are committed to expanding it further in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, our main cocoa origins. We welcome the interest of governments and other industry players in our approach. Together, we will be able to scale up our work for more impact.”
Nestlé scaled its income accelerator from 1,000 families in the 2020 pilot to 10,000 at launch in 2022, reaching 30,000 families in 2024. The company aims to engage 50,000 families by 2026, with a long-term goal of supporting an estimated 160,000 cocoa-farming households by 2030.
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