A Chat With Brad Reese | #PSC 240
OVERVIEW: Episode 240 of #PodSaveChocolate takes a look at one of THE most iconic chocolate candies in the US, from the perspective of the grandson of the inventor: as chocolate recipes under price pressure, what can consumers do to push back?
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Episode 240
Whatever has happened to Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups?
The flippant answer is Hershey, but a closer look reveals something far more insidious: the slow change – and not in a good way – of the childhood favorites we love.
Perhaps no other iconic chocolate candy has received more public scrutiny than the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Created by H. B. Reese in 1928 (though there is evidence the company had a factory making them by 1926), the son of the founder sold the company to Hershey in 1963.
A Google News search
60 years later, the world of chocolate is under increasing pressure as the price of cocoa remain at roughly 2x the historical average over the past decade (but well below the inflation-adjusted price). The increase in the price of cocoa has led Big Chocolate companies to pursue a number of strategies to control costs.
Chief among them are to:
- Reduce the size without lowering the price
- Reformulate with cheaper ingredients
We’ve seen this playbook before, and even prestige brands are not immune from pressure to maintain margins. Godiva, purchased in the early 1970s by the Campbell Soup Company (now The Campbell’s Company). Under corporate pressure to maintain earnings and other KPIs, the recipes changed. While any one change (saving fractions of a penny per piece over millions of pieces adds up) might not be detectable, dozens or hundreds of changes over the course of years can, and will.
Recently, there has been consumer pushback about changes to the beloved Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup – and who better to talk with about the controversy than Brad Reese, a grandson of the inventory, who’s been a vocal critic of Hershey’s stewardship of the brand?
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Future Episodes
What you need to know about the new Non-UPF certification
A chat with Rachel Handler, the author of the NY Magazine article: The Chocolate Conspiracy.
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Clay Gordon
Episodes 201-300 (links to older PSC archives are in the top nav).
Clay Gordon