Kitkat Vegan: Nestlé confirms chocolate bar will soon disappear from UK shop shelves
A chocolate bar that delighted those on plant-based diets - and those with milk or lactose allergies - is now disappearing from the shops.
NationalWorld revealed in January that Nestlé had decided to end production of the KitKat Vegan, disappointing many sweet treat lovers who were impressed by its similarity to its milk-chocolate based original. It was pulled from most of the world in the winter, but the UK and Ireland was given a stay of execution until the summer.
A Nestlé spokesperson said back then: “We know that KitKat Vegan has been popular for those looking for dairy or vegan alternatives. Unfortunately, global demand has been reducing to the point that production was making manufacturing more and more complex and we have now made the difficult decision to discontinue the product. We know there will be some disappointment, however it will still be available in the UK and Ireland until the summer.”
Now, however, the multinational has not had a change of heart.
Today the spokesperson said: “Yes we can confirm that KitKat Vegan has now been discontinued. KitKat Vegan fans can head to Sainsbury’s or Tesco stores where the product may still be available while stocks last.”
KitKat Vegans were launched in 2021, and were one of the first plant-based versions of “high street” chocolate bars to be launched.
National World reported in January that many people were unhappy about the news.
One, posting on the Facebook group Vegan Food UK, wrote: “No! You are just cruel! It’s one of the only nice tasting vegan chocolate products that my daughter can eat without an allergic reaction. We’ve been paying your over-inflated prices for a long while and now you’re taking that little bit of pleasure away from her and so many thousands of others.”
Regular four-finger KitKats are sold for 75p at Tesco, while the vegan version is £1.
Someone else also flagged up the higher price, saying “Maybe if they weren't double the price of their standard KitKat, more people would buy them! Plus finding them is hard enough”, as did another contributor: “Nooo! I love these, so do my kids! Maybe if they’d sold them in multi pack and brought the price down, and put them next to the regular KitKats instead of only in the ‘free from’ aisle.”
And another said they were hard to find: “It’s lovely but you can’t find them in shops in small towns - there was no roll out in the UK, no advertising either.”