Brad Reese, the grandson of the inventor of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, chastised Hershey for “quietly replacing” the candy’s signature chocolate and peanut butter ingredients that built consumers’ trust in the candy.
On Valentine’s Day Reese wrote an open letter to Todd Scott, the manager for “corporate brand and editorial” at Hershey, about his concerns that Reese’s “identity is being rewritten:”
My grandfather, H. B. REESE (Who Invented REESE’S), built REESE’S on a simple, enduring architecture: Milk Chocolate + Peanut Butter. Not a flavor idea. Not a marketing construct. A real, tangible product identity that consumers have trusted for a century.
But today, REESE’S identity is being rewritten, not by storytellers, but by formulation decisions that replace Milk Chocolate with compound coatings and Peanut Butter with peanut‑butter‑style crèmes across multiple REESE’S products.
He asked rhetorically, “How does The Hershey Company continue to position REESE’S as its flagship brand, a symbol of trust, quality and leadership, while quietly replacing the very ingredients (Milk Chocolate + Peanut Butter) that built REESE’S trust in the first place?”
Brad Reese is the grandson of H.B. Reese, who worked at Hershey for two years before forming his own candy company in 1919. H.B. Reese invented the Peanut Butter Cup in 1928 in the basement of his home in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
“Reese’s became iconic because my grandfather built it on real ingredients and real integrity,” Reese’s grandson wrote in another post on LinkedIn.
Hershey told CBS News that the company sometimes makes “product recipe adjustments,” but added, “Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are made the same way they always have been.”
The company continued:
As we’ve grown and expanded the Reese’s product line, we make product recipe adjustments that allow us to make new shapes, sizes and innovations that Reese’s fans have come to love and ask for, while always protecting the essence of what makes Reese’s unique and special: the perfect combination of chocolate and peanut butter.
CBS News noted that higher cocoa prices have caused some candy manufacturers to resort to using less chocolate to compensate.
Reese said he thinks Hershey has gone too far, with the changes fundamentally changing the taste of its products.
Referring to a new Reese’s product, Reese said in an interview with the Associated Press, “It was not edible. You have to understand. I used to eat a Reese’s product every day. This is very devastating for me.”
Reese said that the Pennsylvania-based chocolate giant should remember the motto of its founder, Milton Hershey: “Give them quality, that’s the best advertising.”
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