Chocolate fans can check if they purchased stolen KitKats after more than 400,000 bars went missing last week. Nestle has asked customers to enter the batch number of their chocolate bar into its newly launched ‘Stolen KitKat Tracker’ to help locate 12 tonnes of goods that were stolen from a truck in Switzerland while it was en route to Poland from Italy.

A message will let customers know whether their bar is part of the 413,793 stolen bars, and if so, provide clear instructions to alert KitKat. The chocolate company previously said the 12 tonnes of missing stock could surface in unofficial sales channels across Europe.

After gaining significant attention online, KitKat clarified on X that it was not a joke.

It said: “Thank you for your interest in the missing KitKats. But just to clarify, this is not a stunt, or an April Fool’s joke. Someone really stole 12 tonnes of KitKats and we really want to know where they’ve gone. So, we’ve created a stolen KitKat Tracker that lets you check if your KitKat is from the missing batch.”

To use the tracker, customers must simply submit the eight-digit batch number on the back of their KitKat.

While Nestle previously joked that the thieves had “exceptional taste”, the business said it reflected a serious trend of increased theft in the industry, stating, “the fact remains that cargo theft is an escalating issue for businesses of all sizes”.

It added: “With more sophisticated schemes being deployed on a regular basis, we have chosen to go public with our own experience in the hope that it raises awareness of an increasingly common criminal trend.”

It comes after a report revealed an “alarming rise” in cargo theft and freight fraud across global supply chains, in coordinated research from the International Union of Marine Insurance and the Transported Asset Protection Association (TAPA) EMEA.