Inside Hershey

The Holiday Chocolate House | Hershey's Chocolate World

Most of Hershey is already decked out for the holidays, and Hershey's Chocolate World is no exception. There's a giant tree in the lobby, garland and lights strung all through the building, a set-up for photos with Santa and of course, all the special holiday versions of Hershey confections.

But there's an impressive undertaking in the food court area of Chocolate World, a new holiday feature that's sure to appeal to all ages: the Hershey's Holiday Chocolate House is under construction and scheduled to be completed on November 20.

In the meantime, it's fun to watch the builders apply sweets of every variety to the frame.

The finished chocolate house will:

• stand 17 feet high and occupy 100 square feet of floor space;
• feature a detailed roof tiled with Hershey's oversized milk chocolate and dark chocolate;
• have a façade of Hershey's Cookies & Cream bars with Kit Kat bars serving as corner moulding;
• sparkle with "stained glass" windows made of melted Jolly Rancher candies;
• look festive thanks to green Twizzler garland with Bubble Yum bows;
• feature Reese's Peanut Butter Cup and giant Hershey Kiss trim.

It's worth a visit to Chocolate World just to see this new attraction!

 

New Finds at Chocolate World

If you're looking for interesting new items at Hershey's Chocolate World, it's always a good idea to visit during the first weeks of October. It's Auto Show Time—the AACA Fall Meet draws upwards of 250,000 to our small town—and Chocolate World is always stocked with special items and holiday items for the AACA crowd.

So I wasn't too surprised to see Candy Cane Kisses and Mint Truffle Kisses on the shelves when I walked in to Chocolate World this week. But I also noticed a few other happy finds available for purchase and promptly scooped them up.

The new White Chocolate Meltaway Bliss and the new Hershey's Pieces line were there, a few weeks ahead of their scheduled release date. I've linked to Cybele's excellent reviews of both on Candy Blog for those who want all the juicy details, but I have to say that the new member of the Bliss family is my new favorite—it's positively addictive! And Penn State fans will find the blue-and-white York Pieces make a great decorative touch for tailgating.

I also spotted bags of Cookies & Cream Miniatures that I hadn't noticed before, including the popular white confection version as well as a milk chocolate Cookies & Cream Miniature.

There should be a few more holiday offerings from Hershey this year, including Kisses in "Naughty" (black foil) or "Nice" (silver foil) packaging. I am still holding out hope for the Limited Edition Mint Kisses (a solid chocolate extruded Kiss with mint flavoring, as opposed to the Mint Truffle moulded variety) to return, as well as the flavorful Creme de Menthe Bliss that debuted as a limited edition item last year.

Found at Chocolate World | Hershey's Popcorn!

We found chocolate-drizzled popcorn in Hershey's and Heath varieties tucked on an obscure shelf at Hershey's Chocolate World last week.

The popcorn is apparently made under license by Signature Brands, an Ocala company. The Heath variety tastes like plain caramel corn to me, fresh, but simply sweet with not much of a butter or toffee flavor. The Hershey's Chocolate-Drizzled Popcorn was better (and no tropical oils on the ingredients list!), although it would be more accurate to label it "chocolate-drizzled caramel corn" rather than "chocolate-drizzled popcorn."

Whatever you call it, the popcorn packages are pricy, at $6.95 for 6 oz. — perhaps not a regular family snack, but a lovely gift!

Infinity Krackel!

If you're like me, you have your favorites in that bag of Hershey's Miniatures and those favorites may or may not be plucked out of the bag first.

For me, the Miniatures bags are all about the Krackel. I used to love Krackel bars, and then...they were discontinued. For the past few years, the only way to get my Krackel fix was in the traditional Miniatures bags.

But this week, I found a shelf full of interesting bags at Hershey's Chocolate World: 12 oz, and filled with Krackel Miniatures. Yay!

There are two miniature pieces of bad news, however: the 12 oz. bags o' Krackel are priced at $4.95; and those little Krackel bars are made in Mexico.

Also found in a pricy 12-oz. bag this week: milk chocolate Hershey-Ets. Now that Kissables have been discontinued, Hershey-Ets are the only way to get your Hershey's milk chocolate in lentil form. (The Hershey Company will be introducing a line of "Hershey's Pieces," nicely reviewed by Cybele's Candy Blog, but to date no plans have been announced for a milk chocolate "Pieces" offering.)

Celebrating 75 Million at Hershey's Chocolate World

Hershey's Chocolate World is celebrating the 75 million visitors who have enjoyed the sweet chocolate tour since it opened in 1973. To commemorate the occasion, Chocolate World will offer special promotions and discounts during the month of September.

Download this Sweet Savings PDF for coupons (lots of great values and some freebies!) to use for your September visit.

Giveaway! Reese's Dark Peanut Butter Cups

 

 

UPDATE: The Reese's Dark Peanut Butter Cup Giveaway is now closed. Watch here for winners, selected randomly (using random.org) from our comments...and watch for more giveaways coming up soon!

Since just before National S'Mores Day, we'd been experimenting with different Hershey products in our S'mores, trying to find just the right ingredient to kick up that campfire favorite a few notches. Honeymaid Grahams were a must—and not the low-fat kind. Homemade vanilla marshmallows would be perfect...but for convenience sake, the traditional Kraft Jet-Puffed Marshmallows were working just fine.

But the chocolate: that's where we focused our energies. The traditional Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bar? We wanted something different this time. A Hershey's Symphony Bar? Pretty good...but very (maybe TOO) sweet. How about Mr. Goodbar? The addition of peanuts was nice, but something about the texture didn't work for us. However, the peanut flavor worked well. And that led us to Reese's.

Because our milk chocolate creations were a little too sweet for our liking, we first tried the new Reese's Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup. And there was no need to try anything else—the dark chocolate gave our S'Mores a richer, less sweet chocolate boost, and the peanut butter flavor and texture was just right. For maximum peanut butter and chocolate flavor, a full-size cup is best, but we tried using Miniatures as well and let's just say they were happily consumed by our "test panel" as well!

Then a miracle occurred. In a strange coincidence (or maybe it was fate), The Hershey Company approached us to see if we'd be interested in sponsoring a giveaway for Reese's Dark Peanut Butter Cups. The Dark Peanut Butter Cups are a new addition to the Reese's line-up; although the company has offered limited edition dark peanut butter confections in the past, the dark chocolate PB cup is apparently ready for prime time and can now be found on the shelves in your local grocery and convenience stores (as well as the bigger box stores, such as Target and Wal-Mart).

If you'd like the chance to win a gift pack of fresh Reese's Dark Peanut Butter Cups, all you need to do is leave a comment here telling us how you eat your Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Do you nibble on the edges? Take off the chocolate top first? Pop the whole thing in your mouth? (don't worry, we won't tell a soul...)

Comment as many times as you wish.* On Wednesday, August 26, we'll close the comments at noon Eastern and pick three winners. Each winner will receive a special package consisting of four 2-packs of the Reese's Dark Cups and two bags of the Reese's Dark Cups Miniatures. That's enough to keep your S'Mores campfire crew content!

*The Hershey Company has asked that we extend this offer only to residents of the United States, and only those U.S. residents over the age of 18. 

Goodbye to Starbucks Chocolates

 As we predicted six weeks ago, The Hershey Company officially announced today that it will no longer produce and/or market the line of Starbucks chocolates that was launched in early 2008.

The Cacao Reserve line is another casualty in the company's premium chocolate line. Which leaves us with the Scharffen Berger line (which is no longer produced in the iconic Bay Area factory) and the organic Dagoba line.

With the company abandoning the Joseph Schmidt brand and the Starbucks brand this year, one has to wonder what will become of Hershey's Artisan Confections line.

Little Bits from Hershey | Twitter

If you'd like all those little tidbits of news that aren't quite big enough for a blog post, please follow The Hershey Insider on Twitter!

For example, if you're interested in knowing that the Calder Cup will be at Hersheypark today from 3:00 – 5:00 p.m. — it's on Twitter!

If you don't want to bother creating a Twitter account to follow us, it's just as easy to check the right column for the latest tweets or subscribe to the Hershey Insider TweetFeed here.

Hershey's Gifts Closing on July 31

The Hershey Company has announced that it will close its Hershey's Gifts online store and catalog, effective July 31.

Philly.com has more details on the decision to shutter Hershey's Gifts here. And the Harrisburg Patriot-News reports that 12 jobs will be eliminated as a result of the closing.

The good news? From now until July 31, Hershey's Gifts will offer automatic 25% discounts on all gift items.

**UPDATE** Hershey is back online in time for the holiday season! Hershey's Gifts is now the Hershey Store.

News from The Hershey Company

It's true, I haven't posted much about chocolate lately.

Nothing about the plethora of Easter goodies — the Reester Bunnies, the Bliss eggs, the white chocolate and dark chocolate Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs — and nothing about the new Pieces line, and nothing about the new Hershey Meltaway Kisses/Reese's Cremes/Thingamajig bars (see Cybele's Candy Blog for excellent reviews of all the new products) and nothing about The Hershey Company's stalwart earnings in the face of a global recession.

That's all good news, sure. But I've just been a little down about the company closing the iconic Scharffen Berger factory in Berkeley and discontinuing the line of Joseph Schmidt truffles. Call me a chocolate snob, but I was excited about Hershey's Artisan Confections and hoped it had a bright future.

Unfortunately, it looks as though Artisan Confections will be taking another hit. This week, there have been rumblings that Hershey's and Starbucks have decided to dissolve the partnership that produced those stellar Starbucks chocolates. I suppose it's no surprise — the Starbucks line has never been sold at Starbucks locations, and it really hasn't been supported by a lot of advertising. But this was good chocolate. Premium chocolate. REAL chocolate.

And I'll miss it.

I hope the Dagoba line survives.