‘Twas Independence Day yesterday, which meant celebrating all things ‘America’ for my family here in the states (plus eating too many burgers and ice cream). And what’s more American than Hershey’s chocolate?
Hershey’s Dark Chocolate and Milk Chocolate
As the lower wrapper proclaims, Hershey’s chocolate has been in production since 1894, and it was the first milk chocolate brand to be produced in the country. Created by dedicated entrepreneur Milton Snavely Hershey (who made his first millions with a successful caramel company by the way), Hershey brand chocolate and chocolate goods have come to personify the taste of chocolate for an entire nation.
It’s certainly an acquired taste! To many, Hershey’s milk chocolate tastes sour, and has also been described as tasting like ‘vomit’ (but the tale around that is another story…)
Throughout the decades, Hershey’s branding has remained steadfast since adopting the silver and maroon design in 1906.
Hershey’s ‘Dark Chocolate‘ is now marketed as ‘Special Dark‘ mildly sweet chocolate – I’m not sure when this change was implemented (some of my American chums I’m sure could tell me), but it’s also interesting to note the use of the beveled edges, and lower shadow on the type face. It gives the lettering a bolder, harder, almost metallic effect versus the silver colour on its own.
Two different wrappers, two different products, but both undeniably ‘Hershey’s‘.
Did you know that the town of Hershey, Pennsylvania was originally going to be called ‘Hersheykoko‘?
Built as a factory town around the developing Hershey chocolate company, the town of Hershey was established in 1903 in an area near Derry Church – which was the founder’s (Milton Snavely Hershey) American hometown.
Hershey (the man) had been inspired by what the Cadbury brothers Richard and George had created at their Bournville Village site, a few miles outside of Birmingham, England, some twenty years prior. The new chocolate-producing Bournville factory had gained the title ‘factory in a garden‘, and the area around it had developed into a bright, green and clean village for the Cadbury workers, designed and built by the Cadbury family.
Bournville postcard
In 1904, the Hershey chocolate company held a competition to name the new town they had built (under Milton’s careful gaze). Suggestions from the workers and residents included; ‘Ideal‘, ‘Majestic‘, ‘Oasis‘, ‘Zenith’ and ‘St. Milton’s’.
The ‘Chocolate Town’ with its creator and namesake, Milton Hershey
The winner was submitted by a Mrs. TK Doyle, who had proposed the name ‘Hersheykoko‘.
However, the winning name was also much disliked, including by Milton Hershey’s wife Kitty. And it was eventually rejected by the Post Office for sounding ‘too commercial’.
The name of ‘Hershey‘ was by far the most popular submission and was accepted by the federal government.
Commemorative plaque in Hershey, Pennsylvania (note the Hershey Kisses’ shaped lamppost in the background)
The first US mail addressed to the town of ‘Hershey‘, Pennsylvania, arrived on 7th February 1906.
Ding ding ding! We’ve had ‘Rolo’s, and we’ve had Cadbury ‘Mini Eggs‘…now it’s time for Kit Kat vs. Kit Kat – who does it best? Britain or America? Well, let’s find out…
(top) British Kit Kat (bottom) American Kit Kat
Like with many European-made chocolates, here in the United States Hershey seems to have the monopoly on licencing rights. The Hershey Company produces American-made ‘Rolo‘ (originally made by British ‘Toffee King’ Macintosh in 1937, now produced by Swiss-based Nestlé) and all American-made Cadbury products, including the Easter staple ‘Mini Eggs‘ – both of which I have reviewed side-by-side.
In 1970 Hershey bought the rights to produce the Rowntree ‘Kit Kat‘ (which originated in 1935) for the American market. So lets see how they stack up!
Aesthetics; both wrappers are very similar. Use of red as the main colour (as it always has been, aside from during WWII when British ‘Kit Kat’ wrappers turned blue) similar font, encircled logo and an image of the wafer finger snapped in half. Both even use the memorable tagline ‘Have a break, have a Kit Kat‘ – which was first used in 1957.
Even unwrapped, apart from the British version using the ever cool hashtag motif, the four-fingered chocolate wafers look very similar. The biggest difference is that on the British chocolate the imprinted logo is closed in ‘brackets’, and the US one is not.
The chocolate colour is a little darker on the European bar…but Hershey have produced a pretty slick copy.
Spot the difference…
Where they begin to differ is in the taste!
As I find with most Hershey chocolate products, the initial taste is fairly yummy…but then an ashy taste begins to form in the back of my throat. The cocoa isn’t as chocolatey as Nestle’s Kit Kat, and I don’t feel like the thin, layered wafers have the same snappy crunch.
The British Kit Kat has a noticably sweeter taste over all when eaten next to the US version, and the slightly malty taste of the wafers is much more distinguishable. Hershey’s Kit Kat is more dense, with a heavier mouth feel, but is still provides a good crunch.
Hershey does Kit Kat
Sigh…once again I find myself preferring the chocolate I grew up with. A two-fingered Kit Kat in my packed lunch at school has perhaps screwed my preferences…and that’s ok. My American husband prefers the American Kit Kat all for the same reasons.
Does anyone out there prefer the ‘foreign’ version of a homeland candy? Are you a Brit who prefers Australian Caramilk? Or are you an American who prefers the Nestlé Kit Kat or Rolo?
It looks like I’ll be sticking with the British versions…unless someone can persuade me otherwise!
Following a trip to Kansas City, Missouri, I picked up a couple of locally produced chocolate bars as tasty souvenirs; a peanut butter and toasted corn milk chocolate bar by KC-based Christopher Elbow Chocolates, and a dark chocolate and sunflower seed bar produced in my new home of Kansas.
Christopher Elbow is a renowned chef and chocolatier. A KC native, his highly skilled confections were in such high demand that in 2003 Christopher Elbow Chocolates was launched. They are the creators of beautifully sculpted bonbons and a delectable range of bars – the one that intrigued me most was the peanut butter and toasted corn.
Hang on…toasted corn in chocolate I hear you say? Well, if you like classic sweet and salty combination snacks like chocolate dipped pretzels or salted caramels, why not?
That is exactly what this bar is – a delicate dance of the two. The 38% milk chocolate is so smooth and so thin it melts in the mouth so quickly (it very much reminds me of Swiss chocolate) and as it melts the peanut butter is drawn out. Then you are left with the popping crunch of small pieces of toasted corn and a salty aftertaste.
Christopher Elbow milk chocolate
I love eating salted and roasted corn nuts of an evening, so this bar, despite being a little cautious at first, was a great eat for me. Simple, quality ingredients and so much more refined than the chocolate pretzel!
‘Bar Du Soleil‘, distributed by the Sunflower Food Company of Kansas, is a chunky bar of semi-sweet chocolate interspersed with sunflower seeds. Kansas is the ‘sunflower state’ and so it’s a fitting inclusion for a locally made candy.
I really enjoy nibbling on chocolate coated sunflower seeds (when I can find them), and that is what this bar reminded me of. Like the Christopher Elbow bar, this one is a mix of sweet and earthy flavours, although the result is more subtle.
Bar Du Soleil, Kansas
Dark chocolate with seeds in it…it’s simple, and nice, but that’s about it. As fussy as I am when it comes to milk chocolate, I think it’s much more difficult to make ‘bad’ dark chocolate – and this one was just ‘nice’. I would have liked to have more seeds providing a bigger crunch and contrasting tone against the sweeter chocolate, but it was tasty all the same.
In summary, here are two tasty small-scale chocolate bars that are representing the neighbouring states of Kansas and Missouri through local flavours and honed home skills.
Oh my! It’s Wrapper Wednesday! And this week I have a little comparison of ‘Oh Henry!‘ chocolate bars to share with you…oh yes!
Invented by Tom Henry of the Peerless Confectionery Company, the recipe was sold to the Williamson Candy Company (Chicago) in 1920 when it was re-branded as the ‘Oh Henry!’.
Apparently the previous candy bar was sold under the rather pedestrian-sounding name the ‘Tom Henry’ after its inventor, until a flirtatious Williamson factory worker began making an impression on the factory’s female staff. The frequently heard exclamation ‘Oh Henry!’ became the inspiration for the new name…or so the many legends go.
The exact origin of this bar appears to be a bit of a muddle; with various origin stories, numerous places of invention and name origination…(I’m sure there are more learned researchers out there who can shed a light on this for the limey outsider however).
Oh Henry, Oh Henry!
Anyhoo, Nestlé acquired the peanut, caramel and fudge-based bar in 1984 and in 2018 it passed hands again to the Ferrara Candy Company who swiftly discontinued it a year later. The top wrapper is from the later days of the ‘Oh Henry!’.
The second wrapper is a Canadian version – specifically made with Reeses peanut butter in this version. You can still purchase the bar over in Canada, but it is produced by Hershey and the formula (so I’m told) is a little different.
Which wrapper do I like best? The big bold, unmistakable, screaming yellow tri-colour one of course! I’m not American, but there’s something about this wrapper that says ‘nostalgia’ even to me. It’s bold, clean, timeless and instantly recognizable in its simplicity.
…I don’t even remember eating the Reeses ‘Oh Henry!’ (sorry).
So, which wrapper says it best? And where did the name really come from anyway…?
It’s time for another round of ‘Who Does It Best?‘ – a comparison of two versions of Cadbury’s famous chocolate ‘Mini Eggs‘.
In the yellow corner we have the British-born (now Polish-made) Mini Eggs. And in the purple corner we have the American-made Mini Eggs, made under the Cadbury licence by the Hershey Company.
The original British Cadbury Mini Eggs were first manufactured in 1967. These egg-shaped chocolates, coated in a candy shell come in pink, purple, white and yellow and have an adorable brown speckle pattern in order to further mimic a small bird’s egg.
Notably, the Hershey variety lack this distinctive speckle splatter and as such the colours are less muted. They share the same colour scheme as their British cousins, but also include a blue egg in the mix (a colour that was dropped from the British line-up).
Both wrappers use a similar ‘Mini Egg’ font, feature images of the similar-looking treats, and make use of the gold ‘Cadbury’ signature…but do they taste the same?
British Mini Eggs (yellow) American Mini Eggs (purple)
In short…they’re similar! But not the same.
Like with most Hershey-made versions, the chocolate is less creamy and silky compared to British-made chocolates. There is a strong sweet, artificial smell when you open the bag, and the chocolate (for me at least) leaves an almost smoky aftertaste.
The British Mini Eggs have a sweeter aftertaste, and the milk chocolate, is, well, ‘milkier‘.
But, the crunch from breaking the sugar shells on both versions is crisp and makes for a pretty good eating experience. I just find British Mini Eggs so much more moreish! Once again, that probably comes down to me preferring the types of confectionery I grew up with (ingrained bias perhaps).
Spot the difference…
There is good American chocolate out there! I just can’t taste it in Hershey-made imitation Cadbury.
But you tell me if I am wrong! Which Mini Eggs do you prefer? British? American? Or how about Canadian, or Australian Mini Eggs? Either way, have a tasty Easter!
It’s the battle of the Rolo’s! In the left corner we have the British original, created by Mackintosh in 1937, (now produced by Swiss giants Nestlé); and in the right corner we have the American Rolo, made under licence by Hershey since 1969.
Rolo vs. Rolo
Despite both rolls being quite visually similar; the use warm brown tones, a featured illustrated candy, the iconic red script and gold foil wrappers being apparent on both, there are a few notable differences in the chewy caramels appearance and taste.
Each roll of Rolo’s contains eight ‘lampshade’ candies – however the Hershey version is somewhat taller than their British cousins and the chocolate shell is distinctively darker than the milk chocolate used on Nestlé’s version.
I have never been a fan of Nestlé milk chocolate, personally, I feel like it has a generic ‘non descriptive’ taste, and this is true in the case of the Rolo. However, the chocolate in the US sweet reminds me of ‘cheap’ chocolate that can often be found in poundshop advent calendars…it doesn’t scream ‘quality’ and tastes very sugary.
(left) Nestle ‘Rolo’ (right) Hershey ‘Rolo’
The caramel also differs between the British and American Rolo. The Nestlé version is softer, stickier, more golden in appearance and has a buttery quality to it. Hershey’s caramel is more firm in texture and sweeter in taste and lacks the silky, milky notes of its European counterpart; this is probably due to the lack of dairy-based ingredients such as sweetened condensed milk, whey and butterfat which Nestlé uses in its recipe.
Spot the difference…
Despite not being possessive of the ‘last Rolo’, or any Rolo to be fair, I found myself enjoying the English-born, Swiss-owned incarnation over the American made one. My preference, in all probability, is due to the more familiar flavours found in the British Rolo. Many of us prefer the sweets and tastes we grew up with, and it looks like the Rolo is proof of that for me.
Does anyone disagree with me on this? Which is the superior Rolo?
Do you know how many licks it takes to reach the centre of a ‘Tootsie Pop‘ lolly?
Well, since 1970 Mr. Owl has been trying to decipher this question since his debut in the classic tv advert for the American lolly pop with a candy filling.
Mr Owl begins to count how many licks it takes to reach the centre of a Tootsie Pop…
Released in 1931, thirty five years after the production of the ‘Tootsie Roll‘ (a chewy, taffy-like penny sweet named after the inventor’s daughter), the ‘Tootsie Pop’ has stumped consumers with the age old question; how many licks does it take to reach the candy centre?
For many lickers the temptation to crunch away at the lolly exterior is just too much. However, ‘top scientific researchers’ now tell us that it takes an average licker 144-252 licks to reach the middle chew.
1970’s Tootsie Pop advert that began to beg the age-old question…
As for industry licking machines, it can take approximately 364-411 licks to finally chomp on the centre of the lolly.
Tootsie Roll Pop adverts
Of course, Tootsie Roll Industries will never give you a definite answer – I suppose you’ll just have to count the licks for yourself next time!
Did you know that the American candy bar ‘Baby Ruth’ is named after a dead little girl?
Well, that’s what Otto Schnering – the inventor of the candy bar – would have you think!
Originally marketed as ‘Kandy Kake’ which contained a mixture of milk chocolate, peanuts and a pudding center, the bar was reformulated in 1921 by the Chicago-based Curtiss Candy Company, and was rebranded as the ‘Baby Ruth’.
The chunky, chewy chocolatey bar composed of peanuts, nougat, caramel and milk chocolate was a roaring success. Its 5 cents price tag meant that the all new ‘Baby Ruth’ was considerably cheaper than other competing countlines and the apparent link to famed baseball player Babe Ruth appeared to create a winning combination.
Curtiss’ Baby Ruth chocolate bar
By 1921 – the year that the chocolate bar ‘Baby Ruth’ hit stores – New York Yankees player ‘Babe’ George Herman Ruth Jr was at the height of his career and was a national sporting celebrity. So…is it mere coincidence that this best selling new candy bar had a very similar name to one of the biggest known figures in America at the time?
In 1926 baseball player Babe decided to enter the candy industry lending his image and name to a new bar ‘Babe Ruth’s Own Candy’, but came under attack by Curtiss Candy Co. for copyright infringement against their own bar the ‘Baby Ruth’. Many assumed that the chocolate bar had taken its name from the baseball player, riding on his coattails in order to sell their product.
Baby Ruth vs. Babe Ruth
In court Curtiss proclaimed that their best selling product had nothing to do with the sporting legend and was in fact named in tribute to President Cleveland’s daughter Ruth…who had been dead for seventeen years! Unlikely – yes…but the court agreed with the candy company and the original Babe Ruth lost his case and was found to be trying to cash in on the success of Curtiss’ product!
Many people believe that Otto Schnering and the Curtiss Candy Company managed to pull off an example of ‘ambush marketing’ – riding on the back of someone’s fame for financial gain without paying the original source.
So what do you think? Was the long-enduring ‘Baby Ruth’ bar really named after a dead little girl? Or did the Curtiss Candy Company steal the good name of baseball player Babe Ruth to sell their new chocolate bar?
Did you know that the American chocolate bar ‘Snickers’ is named after a horse?
Invented in 1930 by Frank Mars, the founder of the Mars empire, the peanut, caramel and nougat confection was only the second chocolate bar to be produced by Mars Inc, following their debut with the ‘Milky Way’ in 1924. Before the company was able to invest in machinery, the countline Snickers was made by pouring, layering, dipping and cutting the shaped ingredients by hand.
1930’s/1940’s Snickers box
The bar was given the name ‘Snickers’ in the United States after one of the family’s favourite racehorses. Snickers, along with several other stable mates, lived on Fred and Ethel Mars’ Tennessee farm…called the ‘Milky Way Farm‘! Sadly Snickers the horse died two months before the chocolate bar’s launch, and was so named in his memory.
In Britain however the candy was marketed as ‘Marathon’ until 1990. Like many chocolate bars invented in the early 20th century, Snickers was advertised as a healthy and energising food stuff, and supposedly this is where the name ‘Marathon’ came from…urban rumors also say that the name ‘Snickers’ sounded too similar to the word ‘knickers‘, and the gentile men and women of the United Kingdom simply couldn’t tolerate such an idea…that all sounds a bit daft!
Twins – Marathon and Snickers
In recent years Mars has released a ‘retro edition’ of the Snickers, temporarily bringing us back a taste of nostalgia as the ‘Marathon’ once again can be bought in supermarkets (the recipe is all the same, it’s a marketing ploy first released to celebrate the bar’s 85th birthday).
Lord knows that I detest Hershey milk chocolate! But when I saw these vintage-inspired wrappers I knew I had to have them for my collection. Purchased a year and a half ago during a summer trip to the states, I unwrapped them almost immediately and flung the chocolate at my fiance – all I wanted was the graphics!
Retro Hershey bar milk chocolate wrappers
Hershey milk chocolate was invented in 1900 in the state of Pennsylvania by confectionery entrepreneur Milton Snavely Hershey. After several failed companies and numerous moves back and forth between his home state, Hershey finally made his millions…but not with chocolate…with caramel.
It was only after visiting the 1893 World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago did he come face-to-face with a machine that created eating chocolate, and it was this revelation that encouraged Milton to pursue a new future in producing milk chocolate bars.
Hershey’s milk chocolate with almonds was introduced in 1908.
I’m not sure that these two wrappers are re-prints of a much earlier design. I feel that they are more likely to be a vintage-inspired, limited edition, in order to hark back to days of nostalgia and more simpler chocolate-eating days; where we associate candy strongly with days of our childhood. The use of hand-rendered illustrations is reminiscent of pre-1950’s advertising, with the warm glowing cheeks of the young children accentuating the innocence of children and chocolate.
Highlighting the fact that (the milk chocolate one) was made in ‘Chocolate Town’, this adds to the warm, family friendly and romanticized image of all things named Hershey.
If anyone has more information on these designs then please get in touch!
To kick off the first Wrapper Wednesday of 2021, here are a couple of wrappers of one of my favourite American mainstream chocolate bars, the crunchy, salty, chocolaty ‘Take 5’.
So called because it contains five elements to the bar; milk chocolate, pretzels, peanut butter, caramel and peanuts, the Take 5 was released by the Hershey Company in 2004 and comes in two square pieces.
Both of these wrappers predate the recent re-branding undertaken in June 2019, when it was re-christened the ‘Reeses Take 5’ and the colour scheme changed to the Reese’s family colours of orange and black.
This change in marketing suddenly lead to buyers asking the question, was the peanut butter always made with the Reese’s recipe, or is this a new addition? I certainly asked myself this when I was in the states during the new launch! Turns out the Take 5 had always been made with Reese’s peanut butter, but now it was a real selling point. Why I don’t have a wrapper of this new update I do not know!
For me a Take 5 is an all-in-one chocolate bar – in just one bite you get a hit of salty, sweet, chewy, crunchy and creamy tastes and textures! Aside from the fact that it is Hershey chocolate, it sure makes a tasty mouthful.
October is over, but I have one more autumnal and Halloween themed wrapper to share – Pumpkin Pie Kitkats from the USA.
American Kitkats are made under licence by the Hershey Company, so even without the pumpkin spice addition, they do taste different to the original British version made by Rowntree in 1935 (now produced by Nestle). The US versions contain more sugar, and less milk and fats than the (tastier) UK Kitkat. I personally feel that American Kitkat wafers are more dense with less of a snap…but that’s just my experience!
Released in 2017 these mini fingers are coated with an orange coloured pumpkin spice cream. The flavours are very similar to what we would call ‘mixed spice’, which is usually a mix of ground cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and sometimes allspice.
Pumpkin Pie American Kitkats
Unless mixed spice/pumpkin spice is contained within a cake, I’m not a huge fan, but after seeing and hearing all the hype for this seasonal flavour online and from my last winter visit to the states, I was intrigued to see what all the fuss is about!
Despite the association between Halloween and pumpkins, the packaging on these Kitkats focuses more on an autumnal aspect, with the graphics notably not featuring any ghouls or goblins, but simply highlighting the orange-ness of the season as a whole.
Did you know that in 1905, Milton Hershey and his company, were sued by a Swiss chocolate firm for infringing on their own chocolate bar wrapper design?
Since 1903 (ish) the Hershey Bar colours were maroon and gold, and it is documented that Milton took great inspiration from many European chocolatiers when producing and establishing his own milk chocolate.
However, the Daniel Peter confectioners of Switzerland (inventing some of the world’s first milk chocolate in 1875), along with the Société Générale Suisse de Chocolats, filed a law suit in 1905 complaining that he had clearly copied their design and colours of maroon and gold.
A Hershey bar wrapper circa 1903-1906 in comparison to the Daniel Peter chocolate bar
The lawsuit was dropped after Milton Hershey agreed to make changes to his packaging – which in 1906 resulted in the maroon and silver designs you still see today!
The first silver and maroon wrapper 1906-1911, followed by a more familiar design 1936-1939
Let me introduce you to one of the most intriguing US chocolate bars you’ve probably never heard of – Sperry’s ‘Chicken Dinner’.
Debuting in 1923 by the Sperry Candy Company, Milwaukee, the ‘Chicken Dinner’ enjoyed four decades of production before being discontinued in 1963, a year after Pearson’s (Salted Nut Roll, Bit ‘O’ Honey) bought the company.
Being advertised as an ‘expensive, high grade candy’ (Sperry, 1924) the chocolate bar was originally sold at a hefty 10 cents, which was at the more expensive end of the booming candy market (other high end competitors included the Baby Ruth bar and Oh Henry! which were also selling for a dime).
During 1920’s and 1930’s America, candy production, invention and manufacture was just beginning a golden age. There were hundred of new products each year, with some of today’s most popular and familiar brands being invented during this time: Oh Henry! (1920), Baby Ruth (1920), Milky Way (1923), Reeses’s Peanut Butter Cups (1923), Milk Duds (1926) and 3 Musketeers (1932) to name a few. Up-and-coming companies jostled for grocer’s patronage, and a huge array of chocolate bars, caramels, and candies fought to be the next people’s choice. In the flurry of all these exciting new products how could a new confection stand out? With a memorable name and some clever advertising, that’s how!
Not to be confused with a real chicken dinner, the chocolate bar actually was a mix of fudge, peanuts and milk chocolate, wonderfully described here taken from a 1930’s advert;
‘It’s the bar with the old-fashioned peanut bar centre, and it has a thick layer of delicious caramel and later of fudge-like French cream. And it’s thickly coated with nourishing milk chocolate’.
With a bizarre name and vibrant eye-catching posters and wrapper designs, the Chicken Dinner made itself instantly recognizable and memorable with consumers. There are anecdotes linking the strange choice in name to President Hoover’s ‘a chicken in every pot’ political campaign of 1928, but since the candy predates this movement by five years, it seems doubtful. A more likely reason is that Sperry were clever enough to know that in order to stand out in the ever expanding market they needed something bold, and big…and chicken shaped. The ‘well-being’ of chocolate products were also highlighted during the 1920’s, almost up to the 1950’s…including the Chicken Dinner, chocolate was sold as ‘nourishing’, ‘wholesome’ and simply ‘good’ for energizing and enriching the body. It was sold as a food, not a candy at this point in time, and so perhaps the name Chicken Dinner also carried connotations of being filling and enriching, as well as a tasty treat.
In 1926 Sperry began a huge marketing campaign in order to spread the word about their Sunday roast themed ‘candy made good’. Billboards and banners were posted along roads and busy down-town centres, sign writers painted on shop windows, traveling salesmen and entertainers were hired to cheerfully up-sell their products and, most remarkably, a convoy of chicken-shaped trucks drove from town to town laden with the dense peanut filled sweets. When sounded, the horns of these trucks would cluck and chirp away signaling that the Chicken Dinner had arrived!
Chicken Dinner truck circa 1950
Despite the surreal and colourful advertising, Sperry soon dropped the image of a roast chicken on its candy wrappers as they thought that it didn’t really communicate well the image of the candy bar they were selling…early wrappers didn’t even tell you what you would be eating! So to avoid any further confusion, the image was removed, but the name remained in a stoic attempt to stake it’s claim in the market.
Wrappers that ditched the roast chicken graphics
This ‘distinctly different’ chocolate bar is a wonderful reminder of the efforts made by the small, pioneering confectioners of early twentieth century America. By having a good product, and some superb marketing sense, the Chicken Dinner was able to endure forty years against growing candy behemoths such as Hershey, Mars and Wrigley. The seemingly crazy concept of a roast-themed candy bar could only be a product of the golden age of confectionery…what would a chicken flavored candy bar taste like anyway?
The British Candy Connoisseur 