Break Me Off A Piece Of That New Plant-Based KitKat Bar

Is it still milk chocolate without the milk? Nestlé is down to find out: the brand just announced it's launching a vegan KitKat in 2021. According to a press release, the new plant-based KitKat will offer the "perfect balance between crispy wafer and smooth chocolate that people know and love."

The very futuristic-sounding KitKat V bar ditches dairy milk, opting for a rice-based alternative. Bloomberg reports that the bar also uses a new "sustainable" cocoa sourced through the Nestlé Cocoa Plan in conjunction with the Rainforest Alliance. According to the release, KitKat V was developed by chocolate experts in Nestlé's confectionery research and development center in York, UK, the original home of KitKat. "Taste was a key factor when developing the plant-based chocolate for our new vegan KitKat," said Louise Barrett, head of the Nestlé Confectionery Product Technology Center in York. "We used our expertise in ingredients, together with a test and learn approach, to create a delicious vegan alternative to our original chocolate KitKat."

The KitKat V bar is the latest in a string of chocolatey innovations like the KitKat Ruby and KitKat Chocolatory Cacao Fruit Chocolate, the latter of which uses chocolate made entirely from the cocoa fruit. If you live in the U.S., where KitKats are manufactured by Hershey, you'll miss out on these altogether. And even UK KitKat-lovers haven't gotten to taste them all—the Ruby bar was released in Japan, Korea, and parts of Europe, while the Chocolatory Cacao bar was exclusive to Japan. Same deal with the KitKat V. The release stipulates that it will be launched later this year "in several countries across the globe" and only released to "selected retailers" before a wider roll-out. In the meantime, lots of craft chocolatiers are rolling out vegan-friendly chocolate options.