Grandson of Inventor of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups Goes Public With the Obvious: They Taste Like Shit Now
Brad Reese, on LinkedIn last week:
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.
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.
The Associated Press:
Hershey said Wednesday that Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are made
the same way they always have been, with milk chocolate and peanut
butter that the company makes itself from roasted peanuts and a
few other ingredients, including sugar and salt. But some Reese’s
ingredients vary, Hershey said.
“As we’ve grown and expanded the Reese’s product line, 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,” the company said.
Brad Reese said he thinks Hershey went too far. He said he
recently threw out a bag of Reese’s Mini Hearts, which were a new
product released for Valentine’s Day. The packaging notes that the
heart-shaped candies are made from “chocolate candy and peanut
butter crème,” not milk chocolate and peanut butter.
“It was not edible,” Reese told The Associated Press in an
interview. “You have to understand. I used to eat a Reese’s
product every day. This is very devastating for me.”
Enshittification came for Reese’s Cups (along with just about everything else Hershey makes) long ago. Both the “milk chocolate” and “peanut butter” require dick quotes around them. Compare and contrast the taste — and ingredients list — to the peanut butter cups from, say, Justin’s (who also makes them with dark chocolate).
★
---
Grandson of the inventor of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups accuses Hershey of cutting corners
1 of 4 |
The grandson of the inventor of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups is lashing out at The Hershey Co., accusing the candy company of hurting the Reese’s brand by shifting to cheaper ingredients in many products. (AP video: Sahar Akbarzai, Carrie Antlfinger)
[Image: A package of Reese’s Hearts is shown on Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026 in New Jersey. (AP Photo/Pablo Salinas)]
2 of 4 |
A package of Reese’s Hearts is shown on Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026 in New Jersey. (AP Photo/Pablo Salinas)
[Image: These are Reese's Peanut Butter Cups in Pittsburgh Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)]
3 of 4 |
These are Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in Pittsburgh Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
[Image: Reese's Candies are shown in Carmel, Ind., Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)]
4 of 4 |
Reese’s Candies are shown in Carmel, Ind., Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
Grandson of the inventor of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups accuses Hershey of cutting corners
1 of 4
The grandson of the inventor of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups is lashing out at The Hershey Co., accusing the candy company of hurting the Reese’s brand by shifting to cheaper ingredients in many products. (AP video: Sahar Akbarzai, Carrie Antlfinger)
-->
-->
Copy
Link copied
Bluesky
[Image: A package of Reese’s Hearts is shown on Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026 in New Jersey. (AP Photo/Pablo Salinas)]
2 of 4 |
A package of Reese’s Hearts is shown on Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026 in New Jersey. (AP Photo/Pablo Salinas)
2 of 4
A package of Reese’s Hearts is shown on Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026 in New Jersey. (AP Photo/Pablo Salinas)
-->
-->
Copy
Link copied
Bluesky
[Image: These are Reese's Peanut Butter Cups in Pittsburgh Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)]
3 of 4 |
These are Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in Pittsburgh Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
3 of 4
These are Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in Pittsburgh Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
-->
-->
Copy
Link copied
Bluesky
[Image: Reese's Candies are shown in Carmel, Ind., Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)]
4 of 4 |
Reese’s Candies are shown in Carmel, Ind., Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
4 of 4
Reese’s Candies are shown in Carmel, Ind., Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
-->
-->
Copy
Link copied
Bluesky
DEE-ANN DURBIN
Updated [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year]
-->
-->
[Image: Comments]
Copy
Link copied
Bluesky
The grandson of the inventor of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups has lashed out at The Hershey Co., accusing the candy company of hurting the Reese’s brand by shifting to cheaper ingredients in many products.
Hershey acknowledges some recipe changes but said Wednesday that it was trying to meet consumer demand for innovation. High cocoa prices also have led Hershey and other manufacturers to experiment with using less chocolate in recent years.
Brad Reese, 70, said in a Feb. 14 letter to Hershey’s corporate brand manager that for multiple Reese’s products, the company replaced milk chocolate with compound coatings and peanut butter with peanut crème.
“How does The Hershey Co. 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 the letter, which he posted on his LinkedIn profile.
He is the grandson of H.B. Reese, who spent two years at Hershey before forming his own candy company in 1919. H.B. Reese invented Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in 1928; his six sons eventually sold his company to Hershey in 1963.
[Image: A Valentine's Day box of chocolates is seen on a store shelf Friday, Jan. 16, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)]
Falling cocoa prices won’t necessarily mean cheaper Valentine’s Day chocolates
4 MIN READ
[Image: Washington Capitals forward Eriks Mateiko (73) in action during the second period of an NHL preseason hockey game against the Boston Bruins, Oct. 2, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Nick Wass, File)]
Latvia to make injury replacement for the Olympics with Eriks Mateiko out
1 MIN READ
Hershey said Wednesday that Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are made the same way they always have been, with milk chocolate and peanut butter that the company makes itself from roasted peanuts and a few other ingredients, including sugar and salt. But some Reese’s ingredients vary, Hershey said.
“As we’ve grown and expanded the Reese’s product line, 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,” the company said.
Brad Reese said he thinks Hershey went too far. He said he recently threw out a bag of Reese’s Mini Hearts, which were a new product released for Valentine’s Day. The packaging notes that the heart-shaped candies are made from “chocolate candy and peanut butter crème,” not milk chocolate and peanut butter.
“It was not edible,” Reese told The Associated Press in an interview. “You have to understand. I used to eat a Reese’s product every day. This is very devastating for me.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has strict ingredient and labeling requirements for chocolate. To be considered milk chocolate, products must contain at least 10% chocolate liquor, which is a paste made from ground cocoa beans and contains no alcohol. Products also must contain at least 12% milk solids and 3.39% milk fat.
Companies can get around those rules by using other wording on their packaging. The wrapper for Hershey’s Mr. Goodbar, for example, contains the words “chocolate candy” instead of “milk chocolate.”
Reese said Hershey changed the recipes for multiple Reese’s products in recent years. Reese’s Take5 and Fast Break bars used to be coated with milk chocolate, he said, but now they aren’t. In the early 2000’s, when Hershey released White Reese’s, they were made with white chocolate. Now they’re made with a white creme, he said.
Reese said Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups sold in Europe, the United Kingdom and Ireland are also different than U.S. versions. On Wednesday, a package advertised on the website of British online supermarket Ocado described the candy as “milk chocolate-flavored coating and peanut butter crème.”
Hershey disputed that. The company said the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups it sells in the European Union and the United Kingdom use the same recipe as the U.S. version. The labels vary because the EU and the U.K. both require milk chocolate products to have higher percentages of cocoa, milk solids and milk fats, Hershey said.
In a conference call with investors last year, Hershey Chief Financial Officer Steven Voskuil said the company made some changes in its formulas. Voskuil did not say for which products but said Hershey was very careful to maintain the “taste profile and the specialness of our iconic brands.”
“I would say in all the changes that we’ve made thus far, there has been no consumer impact whatsoever. As you can imagine, even on the smallest brand in the portfolio, if we were to make a change, there’s extensive consumer testing,” he said.
But Brad Reese said he often has people tell him that Reese’s products don’t taste as good as they used to. He said Pennsylvania-based Hershey should keep in mind a famous quote from its founder, Milton Hershey: “Give them quality, that’s the best advertising.”
“I absolutely believe in innovation, but my preference is innovation with quality,” Reese said.
DEE-ANN DURBIN
Durbin is an Associated Press business writer focusing on the food and beverage industry. She has also covered the auto industry and state and national politics in her nearly 30-year career with the AP.
mailto
---
[Original source](https://apnews.com/article/reeses-peanut-butter-cups-hershey-chocolate-1a66ec75247fd146888b7a747a740cd3)