Someone decided to break themselves off an entire truck load of KitKat bars as they were being transported from Italy to Poland, according to overseas news reports.
Swiss food giant Nestlé says a truck with about 12 tons — roughly 413,793 candy bars — of its KitKat chocolate brand was stolen at some point after leaving its Italian production site.
The company said in a statement on Friday, March 27, that “the vehicle and its load are still nowhere to be found.”
The shipment of the delicious chocolate bars disappeared last week. Once in Poland, the KitKats were supposed to then be shipped out to distributors across Europe.
The missing candy bars could be sold through black market dealers in different European markets, the company said. But if that happens, the candy maker said all of its products can be traced using the unique batch code assigned to individual bars.
A spokesperson for KitKat explained that consumers, retailers and wholesalers will be able to identify the stolen chocolate bars by scanning the on-pack batch numbers. If a match is found, the scanner is provided with clear instructions on how to alert the company, which will then share the evidence with the appropriate authorities.
“Whilst we appreciate the criminals’ exceptional taste, the fact remains that cargo theft is an escalating issue for businesses of all sizes,” KitKat said in a statement. “With more sophisticated schemes being deployed on a regular basis, we have chosen to go public with our own experience in the hope that it raises awareness of an increasingly common criminal trend.”
Nestlé has not disclosed where exactly the vehicle was stolen and no one was hurt in the heist.
“We’ve always encouraged people to have a break with KitKat,” added Nestlé in a statement. “But it seems thieves have taken the message too literally and made a break with more than 12 tons of our chocolate.”
The Guardian reports the stolen candy bars were from KitKat’s new Formula One line, a result of KitKat’s becoming the official F1 chocolate bar last year. The candy bars were molded after race cars, still featuring KitKat’s iconic chocolate-covered wafers.
KitKat acknowledged on social media Sunday, March 29, and said it is working with local law enforcement on the investigation.
“Good news: there are no concerns for consumer safety, and supply is not affected,” KitKat’s official account on X declared in a statement.
