Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are a beloved candy brand around the world, worth billions of dollars and probably billions of calories.
The combination of peanut butter and chocolate was the stroke of creative chocolatier genius, and giving the apt slogan of "Two great tastes that taste great together."
Truer words have never been spoken. Indeed, the combination of chocolate and peanut butter, prepared in Reese's traditional manner, results in a taste so exquisite, so - dare I say it - divine, that it has become a dominant force all over the world. Indeed, the combination of peanut butter and chocolate is so brilliant and so successful, that it can be seen in food all over the world, from desserts to candies and so much more.
Reese's is so dominant and so amazing that they have basically cornered the market on something so simple as combining peanut butter and chocolate.
But where does this incredible creation originate from? How were Reese's Peanut Butter Cups created, and what was their rise to glory?
That is what this article seeks to answer.
Full disclosure: This article is not sponsored. However, it is also the favorite snack of this humble and hardworking journalist. And were this article to be sponsored, I would happily accept a bonus in the form of Reese's. Also, I may be writing this article on an empty stomach, but that's not relevant.
Luckily, much of this information was available on Hershey's own website, as well as publicly-available historic information and reports in outlets like Business Insider and Atlas Obscura. So without further ado, this is the history of the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.
Who made Reese's Peanut Butter Cup?
The Reese's brand is owned today by the Hershey Company, and while that wasn't always the case, the story does start there.
With a name like Reese's, it should be obvious that the candy was made by someone named Reese. Harry Burnett Reese, to be exact, or H. B. Reese.
A Pennsylvania dairy farmer, Reese found work in the Hershey Company in 1917, and was sent to manage a dairy farm called the Round Barn in Hershey, Pennsylvania soon after. But this didn't last long.
The Round Barn was experimental and expensive, too expensive to keep running. It closed its doors in 1919.
With that, Reese was out of a job. He would bounce around for a few years, trying to start his own chocolate company and working a number of jobs to provide an income, but times were tough and money was tight.
Eventually, his road led him back to Hershey, where he started working with the company again with some of his children.
But he took what he learned from the chocolate business and ran with it. When not working, Reese would buy his own ingredients and start making new experimental candies. Then he would sell them.
Soon, he was making enough money to support himself, and he left Hershey once again to strike out on his own with the H. B. Reese Candy Company.
This was a major success, and soon he began expanding from a basement operation to a factory he had built.
It was around this time that the word "Reese's" was gaining traction, being used as part of advertising. But so far, these candies consisted of mints, raisins, and the like. However, despite being a success, the company was missing something - a signature, mega-hit product with the potential to become iconic. Hershey had that already in the form of Hershey's Kisses. But Reese's lacked that - for now.
But it was in 1928 that the peanut butter cup was first made, turning Reese from a business to a legend.
Peanut butter and chocolate: Who had the idea to combine them?
The history of peanut butter cups is rather interesting because while many people would assume that peanut butter was a later addition to existing chocolate, that isn't necessarily the case.
Peanut butter was technically made by the Incans, but peanut butter as we know it was first made in the 1890s, most likely by George Bayle, though others claim the Kellogg brothers made it first. Peanut butter became cheaper as time went on, introduced to the general public by C. H. Sumner in 1904. Peanut butter cups - that is to say, peanut butter shaped like cups, no chocolate included - were reportedly found in cookbooks by the early 1900s.
By contrast, chocolate was more recent. True, some form of chocolate product (as in, from the cacao bean) was used for thousands of years in Mesoamerica. And it was later used by people all over the world for a long time thanks to slave labor. Innovations in chocolate were made in the 19th century, including from names that have since gone on to become major players in the chocolate industry such as Nestle, Lindt, Cadbury, and so on. However, almost all of that was drinking chocolate, rather than solid candy. Those that were solid chocolate bars were incredibly expensive, and thus were viewed as a luxury.
But it was Milton S. Hershey who changed the game for everyone. He started working with caramel, and saw massive success with it. But he sold his company to get into the chocolate business. And before long, he did the impossible and made chocolate bars something that could be mass produced.
Chocolate went from being a luxury to a snack for the everyman, churning out new versions of chocolate once the Hershey Chocolate factory started running in 1905.
But then who put peanut butter and chocolate together for the first time?
Well... we don't actually know. At some point within a couple of years after Hershey's business started running, chocolate-covered peanut butter cups started hitting shelves.
But they were never exactly popular. They were part of bulk collections of candies, rather than wrapped candies. And wrapped candies started taking off after World War I, which made peanut butter cups something that existed, but not something anyone really cared much about.
And that was where H. B. Reese came in to the picture.
The year was 1928. Reese was speaking with a customer in Harrisburg who had trouble keeping peanut butter cups in stock. Reese was asked if he could make something like that, and he said yes. And the experimentation began.
It wasn't easy. Reese's peanut butter cups would need to be easy to make, and not complicated, so finding just the right mixture and shape was essential.
While doing this, Reese ended up making his own peanut butter, roasting peanuts to the point where they nearly burnt - something that, according to Reese's lore, is what makes their flavor so incredible.
With that, and the cup shape, the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup was formed. Surely, Reese and his family would see nothing but incredible success, right?
Not even close! The Great Depression hit and they nearly lost everything. Not only that, but Reese actually disliked the peanut butter cups and thought they wouldn't catch on.
At the time, they were sold in assortments of candies. But in 1933, Reese was convinced to sell the peanut butter cups individually wrapped for the low price of just one cent, giving them the name "penny cups."
This was a hit and within just two years, the Reese Company fully recovered from the hit it took in the Depression. But Reese still needed one thing to push it over into greatness, one thing to transform it to successful candy to genius business decision. And that something was World War II.
Chocolate at war: How Reese's benefitted from the US fighting the Axis powers
World War II was a total war, meaning practically everything in the countries that fought in it was mobilized for the sole purpose of that war. And the US was no exception.
Resources had to be rationed, and sugar was one of those resources. This could have been a death blow to many confectionary companies, Reese's included. So to solve it, Reese decided to streamline his company's selection.
No longer would they sell mints, marshmallow products, nougats, and more. Instead, they would only sell one product, the one that required the least amount of sugar compared to all the others.
And yes, it was the peanut butter cup.
The results were obvious, as the candies became a major hit over the years.
Reese died in 1956 and left his company to his sons. Eventually, the decision was made to merge with Hershey.
Despite what many would expect from a former employee of a company going on to start their own extremely successful company in the same field, Hershey never viewed Reese as a bitter rival. After all, Reese only ever used Hershey's chocolate in his products, so he was more a customer than a rival. The two companies were also both located in the same town still, so it just made sense.
After the merger, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups became one of Hershey's most popular chocolates. But not all was smooth sailing in the future. Reese's had one more major hurdle to overcome: An out-of-this world struggle.
The menace from Mars: Hershey and Reese's face their biggest competitor
The Mars company is one of the biggest companies in the world. From humble beginnings founded by Franklin Clarence Mars in 1911, the company began to explode in popularity.
A very mysterious company, Mars has been owned and operated by the Mars family since its founding, one of the richest families in the world and with an incredible portfolio of chocolates to their name, including Snickers, the most commercially successful candy bar in the world.
Mars presented a major threat to Hershey's and Reese's continued dominance.
A new solution was needed, and that solution was good marketing.
A brilliant ad campaign that showed the unexpected combination of peanut butter and chocolate creating the amazing taste of Reese's by blending together.
One of the most famous of these ads was the video of someone eating peanut butter out of a jar falling through a manhole, dropping his peanut butter on the chocolate bar of a construction worker.
"Hey, you got peanut butter on my chocolate," the construction worker said.
"Hey, you got chocolate on my peanut butter," the other man replied.
The result: Deliciousness. Two great tastes that taste great together.
The result was instant success, and this general idea of peanut butter and chocolate accidentally being combined and the dialogue between one person with chocolate and one with peanut butter went on to be replicated in several other commercials - including an opera one.
As a result, Reese's became the best selling candy brand - though not individual candy bar - in the US.
Throughout all this, the history and legacy of H. B. Reese and his family have more or less been forgotten. The only trace of the candy's origins is the name Reese's. But it could be argued that this is because the candy outgrew its creator. Reese's is a brand, an icon, and a powerhouse. And while Mars may have beat Hershey in being an overall bigger and more successful company, Hershey and Reese's are still going strong and remain dominant players in the industry.