{"id":201234,"date":"2026-02-22T10:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T10:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/grandson-of-reeses-peanut-butter-cups-inventor-is-in-pieces-over-missing-milk-chocolate-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T10:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T10:38:10","slug":"grandson-of-reeses-peanut-butter-cups-inventor-is-in-pieces-over-missing-milk-chocolate-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/grandson-of-reeses-peanut-butter-cups-inventor-is-in-pieces-over-missing-milk-chocolate-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Grandson of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups inventor is in pieces over missing milk chocolate – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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For the grandson of the inventor of the Reese\u2019s Peanut Butter Cup, all it took was one bite of a Valentine\u2019s Day Reese\u2019s Mini Hearts to leave him, well, heartbroken.
\u201cIt didn\u2019t taste like milk chocolate,\u201d Brad Reese told NBC News. \u201cIt tasted cheap.\u201d
Reese said he looked at the front of the package and saw the words \u201cpeanut butter,\u201d but not the words \u201cmilk chocolate.\u201d And when he flipped the bag over and read the list of ingredients he was, as he put it, \u201chorrified.\u201d
Hershey\u2019s, which makes the beloved butter cups and seasonal spin-offs like mini-hearts, had replaced the milk chocolate with a chocolate-flavored coating \u201cthat definitely was not chocolate,\u201d according to Reese.
\u201cFor most of my life I ate at least one Reese\u2019s Butter Cup per day, and sometimes something seasonal like a Reese\u2019s heart or a Reese\u2019s Christmas tree,\u201d Reese, 70, said. \u201cBut this was inedible. I threw it in the garbage.\u201d
Then Reese, who is so enthralled with his grandfather\u2019s sweet creation that he often ventures outside clad in orange and brown Reese\u2019s jerseys, and who for 25 years has used his personal website<\/a> to promote peanut butter cups and his family history, took a closer look at the ingredients on other Hershey\u2019s candies that descend from his grandfather\u2019s inventions.
\u201cYou know the Reese\u2019s Mini Eggs they sell at Easter? No milk chocolate in that<\/a>,\u201d Reese said.
Same goes for Reese\u2019s Pieces, which were introduced in 1978 but really took off after they were featured in the 1982 movie \u201cE.T. the Extra-Terrestial.\u201d<\/a>
So Reese posted a link to a letter he wrote to Todd Scott<\/a>, who does the corporate branding for Hershey\u2019s, on his LinkedIn page. And he revamped his web site, which includes a photograph of a brown baseball cap emblazoned with the words \u201cMake Reese\u2019s Great Again.\u201d
Reese invoked the name of his grandfather, H.B. Reese, who invented the iconic peanut butter cup in 1928 and started a candy company that produced them until 1963, when his sons sold the firm to The Hershey Company.
\u201cMy grandfather,\u201d Reese wrote, \u201cbuilt REESE\u2019S on a simple, enduring architecture: Milk Chocolate + Peanut Butter.\u201d
\u201cBut today, REESE\u2019S 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 cremes across multiple REESE\u2019S products.\u201d
That letter went viral.
\u201cNow everybody wants to talk with me except Hershey,\u201d said Reese. \u201cNobody from the company has called me.\u201d
Hershey spokesperson Allison Mason insisted that the Reese\u2019s Peanut Butter Cups \u201care made the same way they have always been.” But she conceded that, as the company has expanded its \u201cReese\u2019s product line,\u201d it has tinkered with the original recipe.
\u201cWe make product recipe adjustments that allow us to make new shapes, sizes and innovations that Reese\u2019s fans have come to love and ask for, while always protecting the essence of what makes Reese\u2019s unique and special: the perfect combination of chocolate and peanut butter,\u201d Mason said via email.
Mason also confirmed that the Valentine\u2019s Day Reese\u2019s Mini Hearts don\u2019t have the milk chocolate designation on the front of the packaging, because the candies actually have a chocolate-flavored coating.
And because the term is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration it can\u2019t legally be referred to as milk chocolate.
Reese said he\u2019s not sure chocolate-flavored coatings are being limited to buttercup spinoffs.
\u201cNow I hear that the butter cups being produced at their factory in Mexico for the European market are not being made with chocolate,\u201d he said. \u201cThe people there don\u2019t have the taste history we have here, they don\u2019t know how delicious Reese\u2019s Peanut Butter Cups are. How can I promote a product that will be sold in someplace like Poland that isn\u2019t a real Reese\u2019s Peanut Butter Cup?\u201d
\u201cThat is not accurate,\u201d Mason, the Hershey spokesperson, said in response to Reese’s assertions that the European market is getting a faux butter cup. “Mr. Reese is not affiliated with the Hershey Company. Our iconic Reese\u2019s Peanut Butter Cups are made with the same recipe.\u201d
One of the reasons candy companies began looking for alternatives to chocolate was because the price of the main ingredient \u2014 cocoa \u2014 climbed by 136 percent between July 2022 and February 2024, according to UN Trade and Development<\/a>.
The chief culprit? Climate change that has caused extreme heat and droughts resulting in poor harvests in the so-called \u201cCocoa Belt\u201d in west Africa, where 70 percent of the world\u2019s cocoa supply is grown, the agency reported.
But since then, Reuters recently reported<\/a>, cocoa prices have plunged by 70 percent due to falling demand and because candy makers have developed alternatives to chocolate.
\u201cI understand why Hershey\u2019s might be looking for alternatives to chocolate, but it doesn\u2019t give them a license to cheapen the product,\u201d said Reese. \u201cThey should be creating different candies, not undermining consumer\u2019s trust in an iconic product.\u201d
Reese, who lives in West Palm Beach, Florida, said he was 8-months-old when his grandfather died. He said he had plenty of girlfriends, but never married or had children. He said that after serving in the Army back in the 1970s, he tried his hand at various businesses with mixed success.
\u201cI excelled at failure,\u201d he said with a laugh.
But Reese said he\u2019s always been fascinated by his family history and, after being diagnosed with cancer in 2015, he found his calling along with a feeling of purpose by singing the praises of the Reese\u2019s Peanut Butter Cups to anyone who would listen.
\u201cI really care about this, so that\u2019s why I find it so painful that my grandfather\u2019s legacy is being diminished,\u201d he said.
Will he continue his habit of eating one peanut butter cup per day?
\u201cFor now, I\u2019m taking a break,\u201d Reese said.
Corky Siemaszko is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeFor the grandson of the inventor of the Reese\u2019s Peanut Butter Cup, all it took was one bite of a Valentine\u2019s Day Reese\u2019s Mini Hearts to leave him, well, heartbroken.\u201cIt didn\u2019t taste like milk chocolate,\u201d Brad Reese told NBC News. \u201cIt tasted cheap.\u201dReese said he looked at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":201235,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-201234","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}