NZ has been slowly weaned off K Bars

A pretty much exact (AI generated) image of precisely what a dairy looked like in NZ in the 1980's.

I guess it’s good to be weaned slowly off something that is that addictive.

That beautiful delight, a nostalgic comfort, wrapped in paper making life just a little more interesting.  The smooth surface rolling through your fingers.  Saliva glands sweating in anticipation.

When I was a kid they were available at every corner dairy.  Every service station.  They flew out of this very store by the carton.  20c a piece.  Then, over the years, there seemed to be a crackdown.  A shortage of supply.  The signs were taken down in the dairies.  The ads came off the tele. A few random cartons left underneath the counter.  Year-by year they were harder to come by.

Now it seems the time has come.  The K Bar has finally disappeared.

The last few years you could still get boxes here and there, depending on who you knew.  I’m new to this grocer game, but what I lack in contacts I make up for in sheer determination.

I’m a hunter.  Well, not literally.  I’m blind in one eye and hate killing animals.  But I am good at tracking things down.  I’ll keep calling until someone answers.  And you’ve had to really search for them.  Some shonky warehouse in the middle of South Auckland.  Or a group of triads down a dark alley.  2am drop off out of the back of a truck.  Usually you’d only be able to nab one flavour - blackcurrant.  Or raspberry perhaps, if you were lucky.  But beggars can’t be choosers.  And they’d fly out the door at our General Store.  Put them by the counter and a box would last a day.

But more than a delicious treat, the K Bar sparked conversation.  Customer reactions were priceless.  “I can’t believe they still make these!”  Everyone remembers the sound of the bar snapping, leaving you momentarily unsure whether it was the bar or your teeth you’ve broken.  “You’ll wreck your teeth.”  Not an overstatement when it comes to the K Bar.

Parents telling kids stories about how they used to buy them every Saturday morning after junior rugby.  Or every lunchtime at the tuck shop.  Or from this very store.

Then, this year, I couldn’t get them.  Not through my usual suppliers.  Not from anyone.  The market wasn’t challenging, it wasn’t there.

They’re still on the Whittakers website.  But I think they’re just being a big tease.

I found a subreddit which talked about the machine Whittaker’s used to make K Bars being 100 years old so they only make two batches a year.  I’m pretty sure, this year, there have been a total of zero batches.  I know the market and how it moves.  If there were K Bars in the air, I’d be able to smell them.

I knew K Bars would disappear eventually.  The signs were there after the disastrous K Bar kingsize chocolate bar a couple of years ago.  They were disgusting.  And I guess I knew they’d been detoxing us off them for years.  It wouldn’t be long before it went the way of the Snifter and the Tangy Fruit.  Hell, what’s next.  Are Mackintosh’s safe anymore?

But I just didn’t realise last summer would be the last K Bar summer.  

And I’m not ready to say goodbye.  Not yet.

Just one more batch Whittakers.  Just one more.  Please.