AI Summary
5 min readBrad Reese, grandson of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups inventor H.B. Reese, tasted a new Reese's product—unwrapped mini peanut butter hearts—and spat it out. Scanning the wrapper, he noticed it listed "chocolate candy" instead of milk chocolate, and "peanut butter cream" rather than peanut butter. Digging deeper into store shelves, he found similar changes on products like Reese's Fast Break bars, sticks, and eggs, prompting him to publicly call out Hershey for skimping on quality.
Brad's Family Legacy and Complaint
H.B. Reese started as a dairy farmer for Milton Hershey before launching his own candy company in 1923, innovating the cup shape for chocolate-dipped peanut butter and perfecting the peanut butter recipe. In 1963, his sons merged with Hershey, giving the family stock and a big payout. Brad, now 70 and retired in Florida, regrets the sale and feels Hershey is degrading the brand's core—milk chocolate plus peanut butter—by using cheaper substitutes. He launched an open letter on LinkedIn and a "skimp shaming" campaign, documenting label changes on his website. Other Reese descendants countered that the products are fine and align with H.B.'s vision.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:40) **Brad Reese Discovers Skimpy Reese's** - Retired fan and HB Reese's grandson tastes new mini hearts and spits them out
- 2 (03:56) **Show Tease: Heir vs Hershey** - Planet Money investigates label changes and skimflation accusations
- 3 (07:10) **Team Confirms Label Shifts** - Investigation reveals compound chocolate and cream on eggs, bunnies
- 4 (08:52) **Skimflation Explained** - Companies degrade quality amid inflation instead of raising prices
- 5 (10:08) **Reese Family History** - HB Reese invents cup in 1920s, perfects peanut butter formula
- 6 (12:29) **Brad's Open Letter** - Posts on LinkedIn shaming Hershey for formula changes
- 7 (14:03) **Taste Test Results** - Classic shines; unwrapped eggs taste off with mystery cream
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Show Notes
When ingredient costs skyrocket, companies have three basic options: They can raise their prices (a sort of product-specific inflation), shrink the size of the products (often called “shrinkflation”), or, sometimes, find more creative ways to reduce costs by degrading the quality of their products - which our very own Greg Rosalsky has dubbed as “skimpflation.” The latest alleged culprit? Hershey’s.
The Hershey Company is using ingredients in some of their Reese’s candies that — legally — they cannot call milk chocolate or peanut butter. This has infuriated Brad Reese, a grandson of H.B. Reese, the inventor of the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.
On today’s show, why chocolate makers might be skimping on chocolate and peanut butter, what else might explain these ingredients, and how Brad Reese has launched a skimp-shaming campaign to get Hershey’s to go back to using classic Reese’s ingredients.
And – EXCLUSIVE – you’ll hear Planet Money break some big news to third-generation peanut butter cup scion Brad Reese.
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This episode was hosted by Greg Rosalsky and Sarah Gonzalez. It was produced by James Sneed. It was edited by Kenny Malone, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.
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