KitKat candy bars are super popular in Japan where they come in flavors like Black Chocolate, Matcha (Green tea), Sweet Potato, Wasabi, Kankitsu (Citrus), Yokohama Strawberry Cheese, Purple Yam, Pancake, and more. The KitKat name also sounds similar to the Japanese phrase kitto katsu (きっと勝つ), which reportedly means ‘you will surely win’ or ‘I’ll do my best to make sure I succeed‘. The Telegraph reports that customers buy KitKats as good-luck gifts for students during university entrance exam season.
How are Japanese KitKat candy bars made at the Nestlé Japan Kasumigaura factory? This video series starts with safety and hygiene management and the chocolate tank room, where workers cross streets carefully and clean their clothes before entering.
The videos then showcase the baking line, above, as well as the molding line and packaging line of one of the milk chocolate versions. Videos below.
Additional insight from The Telegraph in 2015:
Even the size of normal KitKats are different in Japan (there are six little fingers rather than four). It is the country’s unconventional relationship with chocolate that enables such innovations to flourish, according to Alex Villela, the French business executive manager for confectionery at Nestlé Japan. ‘Chocolate is a very recent concept in Japan,’ he explains, at the press launch of the eighth Chocolatory boutique in Tokyo’s Takashimaya department store. ‘Dutch sailors first brought it into Japan hundreds of years ago, but it really only caught on after World War Two, during the American occupation. The way of consuming chocolate in Japan is quite different from the UK. Because chocolate is very sweet compared to traditional Japanese confectionery, it’s normally only consumed in small amounts and it is still regarded as a treat.’
Watch more videos about food made in Japan: Making Japanese rice cakes at Nakatani-dou, Casdoce, a confection made for lords & emperors, and how to make a rolled Japanese omelette.
Bonus: Sampuru – How is Japanese fake food made?
h/t The Awesomer.
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