The grandson of the inventor of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups claims Hershey replaced the real milk chocolate and peanut butter with cheaper artificial flavors.
In a LinkedIn post last week, Brad Reese, the grandson of H.B. Reese, said Hershey replaced milk chocolate with compound coatings and peanut butter with imitation peanut butter to cut corners and save money.
“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?” Reese wrote in a Feb. 14 LinkedIn post.
“Reese’s became iconic because my grandfather built it on real ingredients and real integrity,” Reese wrote in a separate LinkedIn post on Tuesday.
H.B. Reese invented Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in 1928 in the basement of his Hershey, Pennsylvania home. The candy originally sold for between 1 and 2 cents. Reese’s sons sold the company to Hershey in 1963.
The original Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup label from 1928 contained only 5 ingredients: peanut butter, milk chocolate, cane sugar, lecithin and dextrose (a form of glucose).
Today’s Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup label contains 15+ ingredients including sugar, peanuts, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, dextrose, high fructose corn syrup, citric acid, lactose milk, various preservative and emulsifiers, and 14% milk solids.
Reese’s, which is owned by Hershey, makes Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Reese’s Pieces.
In a statement to CBS News, Hershey said “Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are made the same way they always have been.”
