For a company based on milk chocolate, Hershey dark chocolate products are their best stuff. This iconic American company started out as a spinnoff, but is now one of the world's largest and most well known.
Milton Hershey began his working life with a four year apprenticeship to a candy maker in 1872, but, it wasn't until he had started and failed at a candy business in Philadelphia, and another in New York, that he finally succeeded in Lancaster, Pennsylvania where he started the Lancaster Caramel Company.
At the 1893 World's Columbian Expo in Chicago, he bought German machinery for making chocolate for coatings for his caramel products. He started the Hershey Chocolate Company soon afterwards, and in 1900 he sold the caramel company, and concentrated solely on chocolate.
With a need to expand production, Hershey designed and built the town of Hershey, Pennsylvania, which has since become a popular tourist attraction, and where the company continues to operate three factories, along with its company headquarters.
The popular Hershey's Kiss was introduced in 1907. Hershey supplied the chocolate coating for Reese's Peanut Butter cups since Reese's inception in 1928 (also in Hershey, Pennsylvania). In 1963 Hershey bought Reese's. Many other acquisitions and expansions occurred over the next few decades. The Hershey Company now exports to over 90 countries.
The company made its fortune, and built its huge success, upon milk chocolate, after Milton Hershey himself engineered a process and formula in the late 19th century, breaking the Swiss monopoly on the process.
However, Hershey has been introducing more and more dark chocolate products, which now include:
Hershey's mission is to bring "sweet moments of Hershey happiness to the world every day." And that they do.
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