Nestlé Brings Regeneratively Farmed Wheat to All 1.5 Billion KitKat Bars Made in the UK

Nestlé has announced that regeneratively farmed British wheat will go into the 1.5 billion KitKat bars produced each year at its factory in York, scaling up a partnership with regenerative food and farming brand Wildfarmed from trial to full production. The move, confirmed on 17 June 2026, brings nature-friendly wheat into one of the UK's most recognisable confectionery supply chains as the brand marks more than 90 years as a British staple.

Trials to use a proportion of Wildfarmed's wheat in the KitKat wafer began last year at the York site, and the grain will now be used across the full annual run made in the city. According to trade reporting on the announcement, just over half — around 51% — of the wheat in each wafer will come from Wildfarmed's regenerative network, with the remainder continuing to be drawn from Nestlé's existing suppliers. Crucially, the company says the change leaves the taste and the unmistakable snap of the bar untouched.

The wheat comes from Wildfarmed's community of British farmers, who follow a set of standards rooted in the core principles of regenerative agriculture. Those practices include limiting soil disturbance, maintaining year-round soil cover, promoting plant diversity and keeping living roots in the ground. Together, Nestlé says, they help increase biodiversity on farms and fields, improve soil health, minimise water pollution and reduce carbon — restoring the land rather than depleting it.

"We're thrilled to be working with Wildfarmed," said Dr Emma Keller, Head of Sustainability at Nestlé UK and Ireland. "This collaboration is all about making the KitKat everyone has known and loved for the last 90 years in an even more sustainable way, all while supporting British wheat farmers to adopt regenerative farming practices that are intended to support carbon reduction and increase biodiversity. With this partnership, it's not just about growing crops a bit differently; it's about working to grow and support a more sustainable future for farmers and the landscapes we depend on." She added that for a large food and drink company with a diverse, farmer-based supply chain, "collaboration is essential to help us achieve our sustainability goals."

Wildfarmed, founded by Andy Cato, George Lamb and Edd Lees, was set up to make resilient, nature-rich farming mainstream. "For too long, nature has effectively been priced at zero in our food system. Farmers have been pushed to maximise yield, often at the expense of soil, biodiversity and resilience. We believe it's time to flip that model," said co-founder and CEO Edd Lees. "Partnering with Nestlé to use regenerative British wheat is a big step forward in our mission to make regenerative farming the default, not the exception, and prove that nature restoration can sit at the heart of iconic brands."

The KitKat partnership is one strand of a broader Nestlé effort to reduce its environmental footprint while maintaining product quality, and it builds on long-standing relationships with British farmers — including 22 years of work with dairy collective First Milk, whose Ayrshire and Cumbrian farmers supply milk for chocolate and coffee products made in Yorkshire and Cumbria. The approach aligns with Nestlé's wider goal, set out in its 2022 Regenerative Agriculture Framework, of sourcing half of its key ingredients from farmers using regenerative methods by 2030. For a household-name product, embedding regenerative sourcing at this scale offers a visible test of whether nature restoration can be built into mainstream food brands without asking consumers to change a thing.