A shop owner who found a 22-year-old Kit Kat bar discovered it has less sugar than today’s version — despite being bigger.
Emma Duncan found the ageing snack at the bottom of an old box of tableware taken to her bric-a-brac shop.
The distinctive red packaging is clearly stamped with a best before date of October 1, 1995 and the candy’s foil wrapping was perfectly intact.
She then bought a new Kit Kat to compare the two versions only to find the old wafer bar was 6.5 grams heavier than the new one.
Duncan also noticed that the biggest ingredient in the old bar was milk chocolate – whereas the main ingredient in today’s bar is listed as sugar.
The mom-of-one, who runs her store, The Den, in Nottinghamshire, England, said: “We get some really lovely things in the shop but everyone has gone crazy over an old Kit Kat.”
But chocoholic Duncan has managed to resist tucking in to the treat since she discovered it last week.
She added: “I’m sure I’d have a tummy ache after eating that. I’ll have to make sure my eight-year-old boy, Caiden, doesn’t get his hands on it.
“I’m now being known as the Kit Kat lady, which makes me smile.”
Kit Kat is a chocolate-covered wafer bar confection created by Rowntree’s of York, United Kingdom in 1935 and now owned by Nestle.
The original four-finger bar was created after a Rowntree’s worker put a suggestion in a recommendation box for a snack that “a man could take to work in his pack.”
The bar launched on August 29, 1935, under the title of Rowntree’s Chocolate Crisp (priced at 3 cents), and was sold in London and throughout Southern England.
The traditional bar has four fingers which each measure approximately 0.4 inches by 3.5 inches.
A two-finger bar was launched in the 1930s and has remained Nestle’s best-selling biscuit brand ever since.
However, the recipe was changed in April of this year for the first time in more than 30 years.
The new four finger bars, which can be distinguished by the label “now with extra milk & cocoa,” have 21.3 grams of sugar — versus the old bar’s 22 grams of sugar.
But compared to the 1995 chocolate treat there is more sugar within the carbohydrates of the bar — with it gaining 3.3 grams extra of the compound over the past two decades.
The new bar is also around 10 percent smaller — meaning today’s bar contains more sugar than is 22-year-old predecessor.
Nutritionist Laura Tasker, 22, said: “There has been a big decrease in the size of the bar while the amount of carbohydrates has increased.
“The big decrease in the size of the bar contrasts with only a small reduction of fat and an increase in carbohydrates.
“Those carbohydrates are mainly sugar whereas the size has decreased by almost 10 grams.
“This shows that the 1995 bar was actually healthier than today’s equivalent.”