Nestlé Now Puts Regeneratively Grown Wheat in a Billion KitKats a Year

July 14, 2026 · Dennis Moons

Nestlé now puts regeneratively grown wheat in a billion KitKats a year. And there's not a word about it on the pack.

Wildfarmed announced a few weeks ago that they're now supplying 51% of the wheat for all KitKats sold in the UK. Not a special SKU, not a "regenerative" version, but the same old pack.

The reaction on this was very divided. Some people thought this was a brilliant get by Wildfarmed. Others felt Wildfarmed sold out by getting in bed with evil Nestlé, and precious regenerative grains should only be reserved for something better than a KitKat.

My work is literally "putting regenerative ingredients into processed food". This deal is exactly that, at the largest possible scale. I should be celebrating.

In one of my previous articles, I wrote that regenerative won't sell as a consumer claim, and that these ingredients matter for what they enable.

This deal tests that thesis because right now what they enable is a KitKat. Which admittedly feels a bit icky.

But in terms of system change, I believe this is a very big deal.

I've done some back-of-the-envelope math, and a billion KitKats require 4,000 tonnes of wheat per year. Wildfarmed will supply 51% of that, so about 2,000 tonnes of wheat.

That's a nice uptick for Wildfarmed's farmer network.

For the purists, some math from my time running sales for Gabanna, a regenerative pasta company in the Netherlands.

At full capacity, we used 75 tonnes of wheat per year. So to match this one deal, you would need roughly 30 Gabannas.

This is not a knock on small brands, but it shows how many we need. There aren't 30 regenerative food brands like that active in the UK right now.

Meanwhile, the offtake deal moves 2,000 tonnes this harvest. Farmers transitioning now can't wait for an army that's still enlisting.

One fear is legitimate: that "regenerative" gets hollowed out and leveraged to push UPFs (ultra-processed foods).

But look at what Nestlé actually did: there are no on-pack claims. Packaging is unchanged. They're not selling regen to consumers at all. They're buying emissions reduction, supply security, and local British wheat.

My guess: if marketing ever puts this on the pack, "British grown" will beat "regenerative" on the shelf.

The safeguard is simple: Wildfarmed staked its name and its farmer network on this deal.

So we need both. We need the small and growing startups that turn nutrient-dense ingredients into food that Big Food can't make. And while they are growing, we need big CPG deals like this to start creating a market today.

Purism says good grain belongs only in good food. But we can't transform production systems and consumer behaviour in one move; trying to do both at once accomplishes neither.

By the time the army of regen food brands is established, who knows what the world looks like. Maybe we've kicked our UPF habits and today's offtake deals were the bridge that got farmers there. Yes, it feels a bit icky. And yes, we do both.