Brad Reese, the grandson of the man who invented the Reese’s Cup, recently called out manufacturer Hershey’s for ditching milk chocolate and real peanut butter for cheaper ingredients in some of their candies. This public callout went viral, and now Hershey is committing to reversing its controversial candy changes in 2027.
Back in February, Reese posted a lengthy open letter on LinkedIn expressing frustration and disappointment over claims that Hershey’s was replacing milk chocolate with “compound coatings” and was swapping out peanut butter with “peanut-butter-style crème” across “multiple Reese’s products.” The news that the grandson of the guy who invented the Reese’s Cup was calling out Hershey’s for cheaping out quickly spread online. It also led to a lot of people claiming they had recently bought Reese’s Cups or other candies made by the company, and that they now tasted worse. Hershey’s responded a short time later, explaining that it never changed how it made Cups, its most popular product, but did admit that for other candies, it had tweaked formulas as cocoa prices increased. That answer didn’t stop people, and Reese, from complaining.
All of this ongoing negative publicity has now led to the chocolate maker promising to move all of its products back to real milk chocolate and peanut butter next year.
On April 1, as reported by The Associated Press via NBC, Hershey’s issued a statement about Chocolategate (as I’m calling it now) and once again confirmed it had never changed how it made Cups, but it had tweaked other candies, like mini-chocolate hearts for Valentine’s Day and eggs for Easter.
“Hershey is committed to making products consumers love, and that means continually reviewing our recipes to meet evolving tastes and preferences,” said Hershey’s in a statement.
The company confirmed that starting next year, it will move all of its candies back to “their classic milk chocolate and dark chocolate recipes.” The company also plans to transition to all-natural colors next year and is looking to “enhance” Kit-Kats to make them “creamier.” That last change scares me as Kit-Kats are already perfect, and if they fuck those up, I’ll be fuming.
Will this be enough for Brad Reese? Probably not. If you look at his LinkedIn page, you’ll see he’s been non-stop posting about Chocolategate. I’m not sure he’ll be happy until the candies are perfect, and that is unlikely to happen. Anyway, I’m going to go eat some Reese’s Cups.
