Hershey Melts Under Pressure, Gives In To Major Fan Demand

The Hershey Company has some sweet news for MAHA devotees: they’re going back to the basics.

The confectionery company made the announcement just weeks after making headlines for their ingredient list. Brad Reese, the grandson of the inventor of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, slammed the company for altering his family’s treasured recipe.

At the time, Hershey admitted to “recipe adjustments,” but insisted the taste remained the same. Now, they’re taking a different approach.

Hershey CEO Kirk Tanner made the announcement earlier this week during an interview with Bloomberg, confirming that the company will use “classic milk and dark chocolate recipes” in all Reese’s and Hershey’s items.

The shift to pure chocolate ingredients will affect less than 3% of Reese’s products and a “tiny sliver of Hershey’s products,” the outlet noted. Specifically, the product changes will impact mini Reese’s cups and shapes, Reese’s Fast Break, and some foil-wrapped Reese’s shapes.

The Pennsylvania-based company will also be “enhancing” their popular Kit Kat “for a creamier taste and texture.” The outlet noted that Hershey is “on track” to remove all artificial colors from its products by the end of 2027.

“Right when I started with the company, we did a deep dive across our portfolio,” Tanner said. “We’re going to make some small investments to really align the portfolio to what the brand stands for. That consistency is important across the brand.”

Reese went viral on social media in February after posting about what he described as “compound coatings” and misguided cost-cutting measures.

“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,” the 70-year-old Florida native shared in a LinkedIn post.

“I can’t just let it go. They’re lowering the quality of ingredients, charging the same price and probably giving you a smaller product size,” Reese told the New York Post in a follow-up interview. “I’m really embarrassed as a member of the Reese family.”

According to Hershey’s website, traditional Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups include: Milk Chocolate (Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Chocolate, Skim Milk, Milk Fat, Lactose, Lecithin, PGPR), Peanuts, Sugar, Dextrose, Salt, and TBHQ & Citric Acid (TO MAINTAIN FRESHNESS).

Reese indicated that the spinoff versions of the classic candy are the culprits. This would include the Reese’s shapes, which are on the list of products to be made with “classic” recipes as of next year.