Reese’s chocolate heir accuses Hershey of altering recipes: ‘It wasn’t real peanut butter’

Reese’s chocolate heir accuses Hershey of altering recipes: ‘It wasn’t real peanut butter’ Grandson of Reese’s cups inventor claims Hershey faked a pledge to switch back to original chocolate recipes The grandson of HB Reese , the inventor of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, has accused the chocolate giant Hershey of faking a pledge to investors to switch back the recipes of its popular products – including KitKat – to the original milk and dark chocolate ones. A confectionary-focused dust-up between Brad Reese and the $42bn Pennsylvania-based company began in February when Reese, 70, accused the company of “quietly replacing” the ingredients – or “architecture” – in his grandfather’s invention with cheaper “compound coatings” and “peanut-butter-style crèmes”. At a recent Hershey investor conference, the company said it would change about 3% of select products to the original recipes but maintained it had never altered the renowned Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. The company’s chief growth officer, Stacy Taffet, said 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”. The changes are planned to come into effect by next year. But Reese accused the company of “ingredient drift across flagship brands” and described the move “as a board level accountability problem” that caused shareholders to sell stock. “Your consumers are revolting,” he added. Reese further told the New York Times he is not satisfied and the changes were not coming quickly enough. “This is just a PR stunt; there’s no victory here,” he said in an interview with outlet. “If they were serious, they would do it right away.” The company has said the changes were already under way but not in response to Reese’s criticism, saying it had previously decided to revert to classic recipes after seeing a 25% increase in research and development to fund talent, techno...