History of Rowntree

John Mackintosh opened a pastry shop in 1890 and then also sell toffees. He created a private limited company in 1899. Mackintosh owned brand of Rolo and Quality Street.

By the end of the decade, the long term implications of commercial difficulties and the problems of succession caused family in 1969 to decide to accept a merger proposal from Rowntree to create Rowntree Mackintosh.

Rowntree originally founded as a family business in the nineteenth century by Henry Isaac Rowntree. The company developed the Kit Kat, Smarties and Aero brands in 1930s.

The history of the Rowntree confectionary company can be traced back to small grocer’s shop in Walmgate, York, opened by Mary Tuke in 1725. The company began selling coco in 1785.

Her nephew William Tuke inherited the firm, now in Castlegate, and in his lifetime it developed into more specialized tea dealer and chocolate and coca manufacturer.

Joseph Rowntree’s brother Henry Isaac went to work for the firm in 1860 and in 1862, he acquired the Tuke’s cocoa business. In 1881, the company introduced Rowntree’s Fruit Pastilles and in 1893 they released Rowntree’s Fruit Gums.

Four years later, Rowntree and Company was officially launched. Chocolate Crisp was launched in 1935.  In 1937 it was renamed Kit Kat bar.

Between 1971 and 1978 Rowntree progressively purchased the Menier Company; including its Noisiel factory, where chocolate continued to be made until 1933.

In 1986 Rowntree Mackintosh added Sunmark, a business costing $230 m that was responsible for some 10 percent of the US sugar confectionary market.

In 1988, Rowntree Mackintosh was acquired by Nestle for $3.9 billion.
History of Rowntree

Nestle Kit Kat

Rowntree had been making chocolate in York since the 1860s. 

KitKat product was developed as a four-finger wafer crisp, initially launched in London and the South East in September 1935 as ‘Rowntree’s Chocolate Crisp’ and re-named two years later as KitKat Chocolate Crisp.

Within two years of launch, KitKat chocolate was established as Rowntree’s leading product a position that it has maintained ever since.

It remained popular in the UK, despite weathering the storm of the Second World War. It became KitKat after the Second World War.

KitKat was first advertised in TV back in 1957 and had its first color advert in 1967.

In 1988, Nestlé SA acquired Rowntree. Nestle boosted Rowntree’s international presence, selling its brands in territories that had been beyond its reach before.

KitKat which for so many years was the best-selling selling chocolate bar in Britain became a huge seller in India, China and Eastern Europe.

KitKat is produced at the Nestlé Rowntree Factory and in 2004 a massive 39,000 tons of KitKat were sold.

By 2010, KitKat was sold in more countries than any chocolate bar, with 17.6 billion of the chocolate fingers produced very year.
Nestle Kit Kat