OPINION: HOLY COW! HISTORY: The man who married peanut butter and chocolate

There’s trouble in Candy Land these days. At least in one corner of it.

A nasty spat is brewing between confectionery behemoth Hershey and the grandson of the man who created its biggest-selling product.

Brad Reese says the famous sweet treat that bears his family’s name is veering away from grandpa’s original recipe. He recently alleged in a letter to a Hershey’s honcho that the company is substituting milk chocolate with compound coatings and putting peanut crème in place of peanut butter.

Hershey’s quickly and staunchly defended its market leader, insisting that the candy remains the same, although it acknowledges some of its ingredients are being tweaked.

This is no tempest in a sugar bowl. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are not only Hershey’s star product, but they’re also America’s best-selling candy. The Reese’s factory in Hershey, Pennsylvania, produces 15 million peanut butter cups daily, and the brand generates more than $3.75 billion in revenue in the United States.

Which begs the question: Given that the sweet is so widely popular, how much do you know about the man who came up with it?

H.B. Reese didn’t try to become a titan in the world of Big Chocolate. But he began his career working for one.

Reese had grown up on his family’s Pennsylvania dairy farm. So, it was only natural when, in 1918, Milton Hershey, of Hershey’s Milk Chocolate fame, asked him to manage the Round Barn farm operation. It featured brand-new milking machines. However, the devices proved too expensive to be cost effective, and Hershey pulled the plug (literally and figuratively) on the operation a year later.

Reese was now unemployed, 40, and head of a growing family — in the most literal sense. He and his wife, Blanche, would ultimately have 16 children. Reese’s mother and two aunts lived with them, too. Mealtime in the Reese home was a feeding frenzy, with at least 20 and sometimes as many as 40 people at the table.

With nearly two dozen mouths to feed, Reese decided to give candy making a try. He set up shop in an old canning factory in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania, and began making milk chocolate-covered almonds and raisins. Although sales were encouraging, the business ultimately failed.

Reese was forced to take a job in a paper mill. Unable to cover the bills, he moonlighted as a butcher. And then a third job on top of that, canning vegetables.

In 1921, Reese returned to working for Hershey, this time in the shipping department. Blanche’s dad bought the family a home. Things were looking up. But Reese had caught the candy-making bug and couldn’t shake it. Working in his basement, he began producing an array of confectionary creations. For instance, there was the Lizzy Bar (named for a daughter) and the Johnny Bar (named for a son who also worked at the Hershey plant).

Two years later, Reese charged back into the candy business. Two- and five-pound boxes were sold, with Reese even setting up tables in department store display windows so shoppers could see how sweets were made.

Business was good. But Reese wasn’t getting rich. He needed something that would set his candy apart from the competition. A few years later, he finally found it.

A customer complained to him about another confectioner’s chocolate-covered peanut butter treat. Shoppers were interested, but the supply was erratic. Could Reese come up with something reliable?

After tinkering around his factory’s kitchen, Reese stumbled upon the solution: Put the peanut butter inside a special chocolate container. And with that, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups made its debut in 1928.

It was an instant hit. The cups sold for a penny and came in a wrapper that carried a subtle swipe at Reese’s former employer, “Made in Chocolate Town, so they must be good.”

Sales were so brisk — during the Great Depression, no less, when candy was a luxury — that Reese was able to pay off both his home and factory mortgages in 1935.

When rationing severely limited the availability of sugar during World War II, Reese dropped all other products and made only his popular peanut butter cup.

By the time he passed away in 1956, eight days before his 77th birthday, H.B. Reese was a rich man. Eight years later, in a move that brought his company full circle, his sons merged the family business with the Hershey Co.

Will the company and Reese’s grandson eventually smooth over their differences? Who knows? But this much is certain: America’s sweet tooth fondness for grandpa’s creation isn’t likely to go away anytime soon.

J. Mark Powell is a former television journalist. His nonfiction book “Witness to War: The Story of the Civil War Told by Those Living Through It” is available at jmarkpowell.com. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.