| Ingredient | Original Recipe (pre-1963) | Classic Cups (Current) | Mini Hearts / Line Extensions | Function / Traced Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Milk Chocolate Shell | ✓ Milk chocolate (FDA standard) | ✓ Milk chocolate (maintains FDA standard) | ✗ "Chocolate candy" or "compound coating" — vegetable fats replace cocoa butter | Key Distinction The same brand name. Materially different product. FDA allows this. |
| Peanut Butter Filling | ✓ Peanut butter (peanuts + minimal additives) | ✓ Peanuts (Hershey claims real peanut butter) | ✗ "Peanut butter-style crème" in some SKUs per Brad Reese complaint | Contested Hershey disputes. Brad Reese says Mini Hearts were inedible. Packaging language varies by SKU. |
| PGPR | Not present | Present — in milk chocolate layer | Present | Added circa 2006 Reduces cocoa butter needed. Banned at Whole Foods (PGPR is on their "unacceptable" list per some formulations). FDA-approved. |
| TBHQ | Not present | Present — in peanut butter filling | Present in some SKUs | Added post-acquisition Synthetic preservative. Banned at Whole Foods — listed as "unacceptable in food." FDA allows up to 0.02% of oil/fat content. |
| Dextrose | Not present | Present — in peanut butter filling | Present | Corn-derived sugar Added to peanut butter filling for sweetness and texture. Cheaper than cane sugar. Not in H.B. Reese's original recipe. |
| Cane Sugar | ✓ Primary sweetener | ✓ Still present (as "Sugar") | ✓ Still present | Original used cane sugar. Current label lists "Sugar" — source not specified. Likely cane or beet sugar blend depending on region and commodity pricing. |
| Citric Acid | Not present | Present | Present | Manufactured preservative Industrial citric acid is produced via Aspergillus niger fermentation (black mold), not from citrus fruit. FDA-recognized as a preservative. Not the same as natural citric acid. |
"My grandfather, H. B. REESE, built REESE'S on a simple, enduring architecture: Milk Chocolate + Peanut Butter. Not a flavor idea. Not a marketing construct. A real, tangible product identity that consumers have trusted for a century."
"I would say in all the changes that we've made thus far, there has been no consumer impact whatsoever."
"I went and bought a bag, and I took a couple bites, and I had to throw the bag in the garbage. I can't go on representing being the grandson of Reese's when the product is total bunk."
The Reese's story is a transparency case study about the difference between what is legal and what is honest. Hershey's defense that the classic Peanut Butter Cup is unchanged is plausible — and probably true for that specific SKU. But the defense sidesteps the actual complaint: across the broader Reese's product family, "milk chocolate" has been replaced by "chocolate candy" and "compound coating" in ways that ordinary consumers, buying products under the same trusted brand name, would not understand.
This is not a regulatory violation. FDA labeling standards permit exactly this kind of variation across a product family. That's the problem. Legality and consumer transparency are not the same thing, and Hershey is operating in the space between them.
The PGPR and TBHQ story is older and less covered, but arguably more significant. Both were absent from the original formula. Both were added for cost management, not quality. TBHQ is banned at Whole Foods. PGPR allows Hershey to use less actual cocoa butter per product. These changes preceded the current cocoa crisis by nearly 20 years — which means the pattern of ingredient downgrade is not a crisis response. It's a business model.
The cocoa price crisis accelerated something that was already underway. The current news cycle around Brad Reese is the first time that pattern has become legible to the general public.
- Classic Cups contain PGPR — not present in original formula; reduces cocoa butter requirement
- Classic Cups contain TBHQ — synthetic preservative; banned at Whole Foods
- Line extensions (Mini Hearts, Take5, Fast Break) use "chocolate candy" or compound coatings — not milk chocolate
- Reformulations confirmed by CFO in investor call; scope undisclosed to consumers
- Classic Peanut Butter Cups still appear to use milk chocolate shell per current label and Hershey's statement
- No public disclosure when specific products were reformulated or why
- EU/UK labels for same brand show "milk chocolate-flavored coating" — Hershey attributes to higher regional standards, not formula difference
- Deep Dives
- Read the label before buying any Reese's product: if it says "chocolate candy" or "compound coating" instead of "milk chocolate," it is materially different from the original.
- The classic Peanut Butter Cup (standard 2-pack) still appears to use milk chocolate — but contains PGPR and TBHQ that were not in H.B. Reese's formula.
- Reese's Organic version is closer to the original: no PGPR, no TBHQ, shorter ingredient list.
- If ingredient integrity matters to you, the Organic SKU is the closest currently available option within the Hershey family. It costs more and is less widely distributed.
- If you want a peanut butter cup with no synthetic additives and no compound coating, you're currently looking at smaller-brand alternatives — not Hershey.
What happened to Reese's is not unique to Hershey. It is the standard operating model of legacy food brands under publicly-traded conglomerate ownership: costs are managed through ingredient substitution, pricing is managed through portion reduction, and brand equity is used to extend into product lines that carry the trusted name but not the original formula. The consumer who buys "Reese's" at Walgreens in February 2026 has no obvious mechanism for knowing whether they are buying something meaningfully different from what their parents bought.
FDA labeling rules require accurate disclosure of what's in a product — but they do not require disclosure of what changed, or when, or why. There is no obligation to tell a consumer that PGPR replaced cocoa butter in 2006 because it cost less. There is no obligation to flag that this specific SKU uses a compound coating while that one uses milk chocolate. Brand continuity is legally maintained across materially different products by keeping the packaging similar and the brand name constant.
Brad Reese's complaint is emotionally charged — it's personal, and he's the grandson of the inventor — but the underlying claim is verifiable from public labels, investor call transcripts, and historical packaging comparisons. The label changed. The formula changed. The marketing did not. That's the structure of the problem, and it's not exclusive to the current news cycle.
The cocoa price crisis created a visible stress point in a system that had been operating quietly for decades. The lesson for consumers isn't that Reese's is uniquely bad — it's that "same brand, different product" is a standard practice that labels technically disclose and consumers routinely miss.