Heir To Reese’s Chocolate Accuses Hershey Of Altering Recipes
The grandson of HB Reese, the inventor of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, is accusing Hershey of faking their pledge to investors to switch back to recipes of its most popular products to the original milk and dark chocolate ones. Besides Reese’s, this pledge also included reverting back to the original KitKat recipe.
Hershey, a $42 billion company, and Brad Reese began having conflict in February after Reese, 70, accused the chocolate giant of “quietly replacing” the ingredients in his grandfather’s invention with “cheaper compound coatings and peanut butter style crèmes,” according to reports.
At a recent Hershey investor conference, the company made the pledge stating that they would change about 3% of select products back to the original recipes, but also emphasized that they never altered Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
Stacy Taffet, the company’s chief growth officer, stated that Hershey was “transitioning our sweets portfolio to colors from natural sources, and ensuring that all Hershey’s and Reese’s offerings are consistent with their brand’s classic milk and dark chocolate recipes.”
Reese has accused Hershey of “ingredient drift across flagship brands,” describing their move as a “board level accountability problem,” causing shareholders to sell stock.
“Your consumers are revolting,” Reese stated.
Reese told the New York Times that he “is not satisfied” and the changes they promised aren’t coming quickly enough.
“This is just a PR stunt; there’s no victory here. If they were serious, they would do it right away.”
The company made their own statement, not in direct response to Reese, claiming that the changes were already under way and they had already decided to revert to classic recipes before his complaint. Hershey said that they saw a 25% increase in research and development to fund talent, technology, and nutrition science.
Reese is alleging that Hershey changed the recipe to Reese’s Cups when they initially bought the brand in the 1960s.
Reese’s first complaint was posted on LinkedIn, in which he claimed that the recipes were “being rewritten, not by storytellers, but by formulation decisions that replace Milk Chocolate with compound coatings and Peanut Butter with peanut-butter-style crèmes.”
He went on to say he first noticed the difference between the current recipe and his grandfather’s after he tried Reese’s Unwrapped Chocolate Peanut Butter Creme Mini Hearts.
“I opened it up, and I had about two of them, and I had to spit them out. I dumped the entire contents into my kitchen garbage can, and I kept the pouch. I checked it and it wasn’t milk chocolate, it wasn’t real peanut butter.”
“I’ve never in my entire life spit out a Reese’s product.”
Other members of the Reese family, however, do not support Brad’s complaints. In a statement provided to USA Today by Hershey, the family said that Brad’s “statements and opinions are entirely his own and do not reflect the view or position of our family.”
“We continue to respect The Hershey Company, its leadership, and its longstanding role in our community,” they said.
“We believe HB Reese would take great pride in the products produced under his name today and in the integrity with which the brand continues to be managed.”
Brad Reese responded by stating that he didn’t accept his family’s statement and accused Hershey of trying to “shoot the messenger.”
“Hershey can issue all the statements it wants. They changed the REESE’S product. They got caught. And now they’re trying to manage perception instead of fixing the problem. The evidence chain isn’t going away,” Reese exclaimed.
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
