Your favorite Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups may not taste the same amid recent accusations
It is not uncommon for people to sell their businesses to larger corporations for a big payout, but they might not take it too well if these corporations mess around with their product too much. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are a cult classic treat with a huge consumer following. The company shot to fame and glory with its Peanut Butter Cups. Hence, the company was acquired in the 1960s by Hershey. However, it turns out that Hershey has made big changes to the product. And the family that created this legacy isn't all too pleased with those changes.
Reese’s was founded by H.B. Reese, and his grandson, Brad Reese, recently penned a LinkedIn post in which he slammed The Hershey Company for doing away with his grandfather’s recipe. As per a report in Fox News, Reese claimed that the traditional ingredients that were used by his grandfather several decades ago were replaced with lower-cost substitutes in parts of the Reese’s product line.
"My grandfather built Reese's on a simple, enduring architecture: milk chocolate + peanut butter. 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 wrote. He claimed that he had recently purchased Reese's Unwrapped Chocolate Peanut Butter Creme Mini Hearts candies and said that they were inedible. A look at the list of ingredients left him utterly disappointed.
"I went and bought a bag, and I took a couple of bites, and I had to throw the bag in the garbage. I couldn't eat it. It was not edible, and I looked at the packaging … and there was no milk chocolate, there was no peanut butter — it was all vegetable oils and fats,” he claimed. He also slammed Reese’s Take 5 and Fast Break, stating that the product was no longer coated in milk chocolate.
As far as Reese is concerned, his grandfather’s legacy was being tarnished and tampered with, and he isn't too pleased. "I can't go on representing being the grandson of Reese's when the product is total bunk. You have no idea how devastating it is." The Hershey Company, however, claimed that the Peanut Butter Cups were still being made the way they had always been. However, adjustments were made to the recipes of certain other products.
"Our iconic Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are made the same way they always have been; starting with roasting fresh peanuts to make our unique, one-of-a-kind peanut butter that is then combined with milk chocolate," the company said. "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.”
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