This Surprising Ingredient Between The Kit Kat Wafers

It's easy to eat and savor a Kit Kat bar without thinking about why we like it so much. Like M&M's, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and Twix, Kit Kats are just one of those candies that are always there: gleaming in colorful wrappers, and calling your name from the candy rack as you wait in line at the store. You know before you even sink your teeth in what that Kit Kat will taste like.

But have you stopped to wonder what's inside that Kit Kat? Hershey's website tells you that it's "crisp wafers in milk chocolate," but is that really all? There's something else in that bar — a surprising secret ingredient that happens to be more Kit Kat bars!

One series of the BBC documentary "Made in Great Britain" featured a visit to the Nestlé chocolate factory in York, England, where host Gregg Wallace noticed a bin of discarded, broken bars on the production line, rejected for not meeting the company's strict appearance standards. Daily Mail shares the moment in the episode when Wallace asks what will happen to the discarded bars, and he was surprised at the answer.

The rejected bars go through a process called "rework." It's then used as the filling between the wafers inside future batches of Kit Kats! (Based on how thin the filling is between Kit Kat wafers, "rework" must mean very finely mashing.) It's a clever way of creating a unique flavor for the candy bars, as well as reducing food waste.

TODAY shares that Kit Kats made in York, England, where the documentary was filmed, are made by Nestlé. In the U.S., however, Kit Kat production is run by Hershey's. Though Nestlé allowed the documentary crew to get in on the secret ingredient between Kit Kat wafers, Hershey's was less forthcoming, telling TODAY that, "the manufacturing process for Kit Kat is proprietary."

According to BuzzFeed, candy bar fans have noticed that candy bars made in Europe have a different flavor than their U.S. counterparts. Candy bar recipes there can vary, depending on licensing, government requirements, and also on the flavors that European consumers prefer. Without a peek behind the curtain at Hershey's, we can't be sure that this isn't the case with American Kit Kats, too.

So do Kit Kats made in the U.S. have this cool, clever filling of mashed up Kit Kats? Unless we're willing to take a page from Mr. Slugworth's playbook, and send some spies into the chocolate factory, we may never know!