Brad Reese, grandson of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups inventor H.B. Reese, publicly criticized The Hershey Company for replacing milk chocolate with a chocolate-flavored coating in several Reese's products, including Reese's Mini Hearts (Valentine's Day), Reese's Mini Eggs (Easter), and Reese's Pieces.
After tasting Reese's Mini Hearts and finding they "didn't taste like milk chocolate" and "tasted cheap," Reese read the ingredients and found the package no longer stated "milk chocolate" on the front. Hershey confirmed that some seasonal and shaped products use a chocolate-flavored coating that, under FDA rules, cannot be labeled as milk chocolate.
Reese wrote an open letter to Hershey's corporate branding lead, which went viral. He argued that his grandfather had built the brand on "Milk Chocolate + Peanut Butter," and that "REESE'S 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'S products." He has promoted a "Make Reese's Great Again" message on his personal site and LinkedIn.
Hershey stated that Reese's Peanut Butter Cups "are made the same way they have always been" but acknowledged "product recipe adjustments" for new shapes, sizes, and innovations. The company said it was protecting "the essence of what makes Reese's unique and special: the perfect combination of chocolate and peanut butter." Cocoa price spikes (driven in part by climate change in West Africa) had led many candy makers to explore alternatives to chocolate; Hershey's use of coatings in some items reflects that industry shift.
Brad Reese said he had eaten at least one Reese's product per day for most of his life but was "taking a break" and had received no response from Hershey to his letter.