Reese's Peanut Butter Cups

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Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
Reese's-PB-Cups-Wrapper-Small.jpg
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, one whole with wrapper and one split
Product type Candy
Owner The Hershey Company
(H.B. Reese Candy Company)
Country United States
Introduced 1928 (according to hershey.com)
Markets Worldwide
Tagline Reese's ...perfect
Website www.reeses.com

Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are candies made of chocolate-coated peanut butter marketed by The Hershey Company that pioneered the way to the generic peanut butter cup. They were created in 1928 by H. B. Reese, a former dairy farmer and shipping foreman for Milton S. Hershey. Reese was inspired by Hershey, so he left dairy farming to start his own candy business. The H. B. Reese Candy Co. was established in the basement of Reese's house in Hershey, Pennsylvania,[1] and used Hershey chocolate in his confections. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups were his most popular candy, and Reese eventually discontinued his other lines. In 1963, several years after his death, Reese's company was sold to The Hershey Company, then known as Hershey Foods Corporation, for $23.5 million. The H.B. Reese Company is maintained as a subsidiary of Hershey because the Reese plant workforce is not unionized, unlike the main Hershey plant.

Contents

Variations [edit]

A trio of different sized cups. From left: mini, regular and big cup.
Giant half-pound cup

Hershey's produces "limited editions" of the candy that have included:[2]

  • Big Cups: an oversized version of the traditional cup (also available in white chocolate, with peanuts, mixed nuts, and with a combination of nuts and caramel)
  • Caramel: the traditional cup with an added layer of caramel filling
  • Chocolate Lovers: a thicker chocolate cup with a thinner layer of peanut butter
  • Crunchy Cookie Cup: a layered cup with crushed chocolate cookies and peanut butter filling (discontinued in 1999, but was brought back in 2008 as a limited edition)
  • Crunchy: a traditional cup with crunchy peanut butter, as opposed to the smooth peanut butter in the original
  • Couples' Cups any Reese's product packaged in two; meant to be split between significant others
  • Dark Chocolate: peanut butter filling in a dark chocolate cup
  • Double Chocolate: chocolate fudge filling instead of peanut butter. Limited edition.
  • Double Crunch: a traditional cup with peanut filling similar to a Snickers bar, released in the fourth-quarter of 2010
  • Fudge: a thicker, darker chocolate cup with peanut butter filling
  • Half-Pound Cup: a single cup weighing 226g; released in Canada in 2011
  • Hazelnut Cream: hazelnut cream instead of the standard peanut butter filling
  • Honey Roasted: a traditional cup substituting honey roasted peanut butter
  • Inside Out: chocolate filling in a peanut butter cup (a reversal of the traditional version)
  • Marshmallow: the traditional cup with an added layer of marshmallow filling
  • Miniatures: bite-size versions available year round in bags. These chocolates come in a black paper cup wrapped in gold or colored foil.
  • Minis: Unwrapped Mini Cups
  • Peanut Butter & Banana Creme: a layered cup with a top chocolate layer, bottom banana creme layer, and peanut butter filling; released in tribute to Elvis Presley. It was available in standard, Big Cups and Miniatures sizes
  • Peanut Butter Lovers: a layered cup with top peanut butter layer, thin chocolate layer and peanut butter filling
  • White Chocolate: peanut butter filling in a white chocolate cup
  • "World's Largest": World's largest cups weighing in at 8 oz each.[3]

Other Reese's products [edit]

Other candy products of the Reese's division of Hershey include:

In September 2007, Hershey's began producing a new Reese's bar called Reese's Whipps. Featuring peanut butter-flavored nougat with a chocolate coating, it has been likened to a peanut butter-flavored 3 Musketeers candy bar.[4]

Hershey also produces several "pantry" items under the Reese's brand, such as Reese's peanut butter chips (analogous to chocolate chips for baking), Reese's premier baking pieces (tiny cup-shaped pieces of chocolate filled with peanut-butter, also for baking), Reese's jarred peanut butter (though without the chocolate, it tastes largely similar to regular peanut butter), and Reese's toppings (including peanut butter syrup, peanut butter and chocolate topping, and Reese's Magic Shell) and sprinkles for ice cream.

For the July 2008 release of the Batman feature film The Dark Knight, Reese's released two limited time products: blue and black Reese's Pieces with Batman's likeness on the packaging, and Reese's peanut butter-filled chocolate Batman logos which were sold individually and roughly the sized of two Reese's cups combined.[5][6]

The fact that Reese Sticks digressed from the normal Reese's naming pattern was pointed out by Paul Lukas in his zine Beer Frame.[7] As Lukas noted, even though the official name was Reese Sticks, most people he casually surveyed pronounced it unknowingly as Reese's Sticks. In 2009, Hershey's changed the name officially to Reese's Sticks.

Holiday editions [edit]

During the seasons when retailers offer holiday candies, Reese's Peanut Butter candies are available in various shapes that still offer the standard confection theme of the traditional Reese's cup (peanut butter contained in a chocolate shell). They are sold in a 6-pack packaging configuration, but are usually available as individual items as well. Recently, larger (roughly twice the size of the 6-pack item) versions of the various shapes are available at certain retailers. Exterior packaging is altered to reflect the theme of the representative holiday.[8]

Reese's Peanut Butter Hearts: Available mainly during January and February, these are heart-shaped confections representing Valentine's Day. At various retailers, an individually packaged, larger heart is available as well. These are packaged in a red-and-white exterior packaging theme.

Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs: Available mainly during March and April, these are egg-shaped confections representing Easter. Exterior packaging is usually yellow and orange (milk chocolate), white and orange (white chocolate), or dark brown and orange (fudge-flavored chocolate). This is the only holiday-themed item available in three various chocolate varieties. A larger, individually packaged Easter Bunny Reese's peanut butter item, known as Reester Bunny, is available as well, and is also available in a Minis variety. In addition, there is also a large milk chocolate-covered Reese's Bunny, wrapped in gold foil. The Reese's Pieces are offered in Pastel Eggs.

Reese's Peanut Butter Pumpkins: Available mainly during September and October, these are pumpkin-shaped confections representing Halloween. The packaging is purple and orange.

Reese's Peanut Butter Christmas Trees: Available mainly during November and December, these are evergreen tree-shaped confections representing Christmas. At various retailers, these may be available in standard milk chocolate or white. The packaging was green, white, and orange, but has been changed to the traditional orange packaging with an evergreen tree on the cover. Another product offered is Reese's Peanut Butter Bells, which offers miniature Reese's cups in a Christmas bell shape. A third product is a milk chocolate-covered Reese's Snowman, wrapped in a snowman foil.

In December 2005, it was noted that some of the holiday shaped Reese's candies (such as the Bells) contain gluten, unlike the standard peanut butter cups.[9]

Licensed foods [edit]

Hershey licenses the Reese's brand (name, logo, etc.) to various companies for the production of other products beyond the traditional realm of candy. For example, General Mills produces Reese's Puffs, a brand of peanut butter and chocolate flavored breakfast cereal. Several companies, including Breyers, Baskin-Robbins, and Dairy Queen, produce various licensed Reese's ice cream products.

Marketing and advertising [edit]

The Reese's logo

In the United States, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups typically come in packs of 4, 10 or 20 in distinctive orange packaging, set on thin but rigid paperboard trays. The "Classic" two-pack is a .75 oz. cup, the "King Size" four-pack is a .70 oz. cup and the "Lunch" eight-pack is a .55 oz. cup. "Large Size" packs of three .70 oz. cups are also available. The "mini" cups come in various bag sizes and foil colors for seasonal themes like red, gold and green for the Christmas holiday season. In Canada, where they are packaged as Reese Peanut Butter Cups (except Reese's pieces), but still widely referred to by their American name, they come in a standard pack of three cups or the king-size variation with four cups. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, they were originally available only in two-packs, though are now only available in three-packs, imported from Canada. In 2008 Reese's Peanut Butter Cups were made available in Europe by Hydro Texaco and 7-Eleven. In Australia, Reese's products can be found in many specialty candy stores, as well as from American stores such as Costco.

In the 1970s and 1980s, a series of commercials were run for Reese's Peanut Butter Cups featuring situations in which two people, one eating peanut butter and one eating chocolate, collided. One person would exclaim, "You got your peanut butter on my chocolate!" and the other would exclaim, "You got your chocolate in my peanut butter!". They would then sample the mixture and remark on the great taste, tying in with the slogan "Two great tastes that taste great together."

In the 1990s, the product's slogan was: "There's no wrong way to eat a Reese's." The current slogan, introduced in the mid-2000s (decade), is: "Perfect".

Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are sometimes used in academic contexts as a metaphorical device to describe the authority of information sources[citation needed].

Reese's was an associate sponsor of NASCAR drivers Mark Martin (1994), and Kevin Harvick (2007–2010).

References [edit]

  1. ^ "Hershey Community Archives". Hersheyarchives.org. 2011-11-28. Retrieved 2011-12-07. 
  2. ^ "Reese's product listing". Retrieved 2008-05-09. 
  3. ^ "World's Largest REESE'S Peanut Butter Cups". 
  4. ^ Bob Sassone (17 November 2007). "Pop Food: Reese's Whipps". Youtube. Retrieved 15 November 2012. 
  5. ^ "Special Edition The Dark Knight Reese's and Kit Kat Fly Into Stores to Celebrate Debut of the Highly Anticipated New Batman Film". Hershey's. 2008. Retrieved 15 November 2012. 
  6. ^ "Special Edition The Dark Knight Reese's and Kit Kat Fly Into Stores to Celebrate Debut of the Highly Anticipated New Batman Film". PR Newswire. 10 June 2008. Retrieved 15 November 2012. 
  7. ^ "Lukas' article regarding Reese Sticks". Core77.com. Retrieved 2011-12-07. 
  8. ^ "Reese's Seasonal Products". hersheys.com. Retrieved 2011-12-07. 
  9. ^ Gluten indicated at celiac.com

External links [edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
Italics indicates discontinued products.
Chocolate-based
Others
Hershey's also manufactures military chocolate for the U.S. armed forces.
1 Marketed in both the United States and Canada, but sold as a Hershey’s product only within Canada. U.S. rights owned by Nestlé.
2 Marketed in a number of countries, but sold as a Hershey’s product only within the United States. Brand owned by Nestlé.
3 Marketed in a number of countries, but sold as a Hershey’s product only within the United States. Brand owned by Mondelez International.
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