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Thursday, August 07, 2008
Kissables (Reformulated)Alert and distressed readers informed me that Hershey’s Kissables have been reformulated and not in a good way. I was fortunate enough to find both the old variety and the new ones at the 99 Cent Only Store, which is like some sort of time capsule, just dig deep enough into the layers and you can find stuff that goes back to the last century. (Don’t worry, both were still within their expiry dates - made only five months apart.)
The ingredients: Milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, nonfat milk, milk fat, lactose, soy lecithin, PGPR & artificial flavors), sugar, red 40, yellow 5, yellow 6, blue 1 & carnauba wax. The taste is familiar. The crunch of the shell is crispy and nondescript but gives way to the inimitable Hershey’s chocolate flavor that’s a little tangy, a bit like yogurt and has a rather interesting rum note to it.
The ingredients: Sugar, vegetable oil (palm, shea, sunflower and/or safflower oil), chocolate, nonfat milk, whey, cocoa butter, milk fat, gum arabic, soy lecithin, artificial colors (red 40, yellow 5, blue 2, blue 1, yellow 6), corn syrup, resinous glaze, salt, carnauba wax, pgpr and vanillin. They look exactly like their old “pure” counterparts (which really weren’t so pure if you ask me). The colors and size are identical. The flavor though, is quite obviously off. The crunch of the shell is familiar, but the flavor of the chocolate lacks any particular pop and feels less fresh. The texture is cooler on the tongue, though has the same fudgy grain that it’s always had.
It’s not that the new formula is bad, but it certainly lacks a pizazz and familiarity that the old ones had. They old ones were like Kisses. The new ones are like, well, nothing much special. Kind of like chocolate frosting. As a mockolate product, well, they’re actually pretty good. These are still far and away better than the Garfield Chocobites or other off-brand/fake chocolate lentils I’ve had. The ingredient tweaking had some interesting results as well, which show that it’s entirely possible to tell the two apart on taste alone:
..............Original Formula ....................2008 Formula
(This info was taken right from the packages, the Hershey’s website lists strangely different nutritional specs for this size package - where the portion is only 1.4 ounces instead of the full 1.5 ounces in the package.)
So the new ones have more salt and sugars, a third of the calcium but no cholesterol. Ten fewer calories, but also made with all sorts of other replacement oils. Oh, and the new ones also have a resinous glaze, which is shellac, which is on most vegetarian’s forbidden list.
The copy goes like this (set to a cover of I Melt with You):
Watch the video here or here. While it’s for Hershey’s Milk Chocolate bar, I take it as a whole branding campaign that Hershey’s wants to stress that they make pure chocolate. I’m just not buying it. More fun with new formulas: Check out what Hershey’s has done to the iconic Hershey’s Miniatures collection. Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 1:51 pm 
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Meticulously photographed and documented reviews of candy from around the world. And the occasional other sweet adventures. Open your mouth, expand your mind.
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COPYRIGHT NOTICEAll content (text and photos unless otherwise credited) is copyright 2005-2008 by Cybele MayPlease do not use my photos on your own site without permission directly from me, they represent what I ate in preparation for these reviews and are not to be used for other purposes. Design by Hop StudiosPowered by ExpressionEngine
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VOTE IN THE POLLWhich do you prefer?
Total Votes: 419
Milk Chocolate 
41% (172)Dark Chocolate
26% (111)Really Dark Chocolate (70%+)
18% (76)White Chocolate
14% (57)Carob!
1% (3)
 
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SUPERB 
YUMMY 
TASTY 
WORTH IT 
TEMPTING 
PLEASANT 
BENIGN 
UNAPPEALING 
APPALLING 
INEDIBLE 
SUPERB
YUMMY 
TASTY 
WORTH IT 
TEMPTING 
BENIGN 
UNAPPEALING 
APPALLING 
INEDIBLE 
How utterly ridiculous considering the “Pure Chocolate” campaign. What an abolute joke!
Thanks for the heat to head Cybele compelling and informative as ever.
Jim
Thanks for the insight, Cybele. I was a little skeptical about Kissables when I first saw them, but I found them to be pretty good.
But my friend gave me some to try a week ago and it tasted like fake frosting to me. Something was just wrong. I’m glad to see (sort of) that I wasn’t just imagining it or it was a bad batch. “Pure Chocolate” if you’ve never tasted chocolate before.
Something about it reminds me of 1984’s “Victory Chocolate”
Well, I tried the “old” Kissables, and I didn’t like them. So I never bought them again. I still don’t like them. We already have M&Ms;. I prefer Kisses over Kissables. To me, Kissables are “fake”. Yes, even with its original formula. To each, his/her own
Thanks for the review. Very enlightening. I definitely won’t try the Kissables now! Oh, and I enjoy your blog. It gets me to buy candy from time to time, thanks to your blog. I’ve revisited candy from my childhood in recent days thanks to your blog 
So disappointing, on so many levels. I was at Hershey’s Chocolate World last night looking for the new Pumpkin Spice Kisses and came home with a Dagoba bar—just because unlike most Hershey products, it’s REAL pure chocolate.
Milton Hershey is probably spinning like a lathe in his grave.
I never liked Kissables to begin with, so I know I wouldn’t like them now, but I do agree that it sucks what they’re doing to chocolate. I think it’s an unexpected side effect of a bad economy with rising materials costs, like sneakily making packages smaller for the same price.
They just keeping digging themselves into a deeper hole, aren’t they? *snort*
I just wanted to let you know that Consumerist wrote about this and quoted you: http://consumerist.com/5034753/hersheys-kissables-no-longer-legally-considered-milk-chocolate
Hi, I am from Australia, and my co-worker bought back chocolate from America. AND ITS DISGUSTING!!!! It tastes like cheese and nothing like chocolate. Don’t you guys have any of the European chocolate? Like the stuff with just cocoa, butter and sugar?
Your chocolate seems to consist of oil and sodium? HOW CAN THAT TASTE ANY GOOD?
I was angered when they made White Chocolate Reese’s into simply “White” Reese’s.
I no longer buy Hershey’s products.
So, What’s next for Hershey’s? A merger with Palmer’s? They’ve obviously decided the market of people who want actual chocolate costs them too much profit margin to pursue…
(The guys who make the really cheap Chocolate-Like Food Product type easter candies, if you don’t recognize the name...)
Who cares? Fat people will still eat them.
^ See, this is what happens when Digg invades.
I’m wondering about the dark chocolate kissables--they are one of my favorite candies. What will they call them “dark flavored almost chocolate candy like things"--I might need to stock up on the real stuff!
Thank you for this article! I thought I was losing my mind (or taste). I was obsessed with Kissables for months, then noticed them slowly disappearing off the candy shelves. When I stopped being able to find them I reverted to their “kissin cousin”, M&M;. I recently “found” them again and they were terrible; I thought maybe they were just OLD. Seems the truth is even worse.
I will now attempt to get on with my life.
This makes me so mad. I used to like Kissables. In fact, they’re one of the few chocolate candies I like. (Symphony bars also rank up there.) But now they’re just crap, like a lot of candy out there. =\
Well drat. I preferred Kissables to plain M&Ms;, but I guess I won’t be buying them anymore!
I’m so sick of all these companies using fake products. I know you focus on Chocolate, but have you noticed that Dryer’s and Bryer’s are now calling some of their ice creams “ frozen dessert” They dont contain enough dairy to be called Ice Cream. Here in Canada, Bryer’s is going so far as to call it “ Frozen Indulgence”. Indulgence my arse!!
Have you see the book Hello Cupcake? They author’s use lots of different candy in interesting ways.
Hershey has been making the reformulated Kissables for several months now. I picked up some bags of the Kissables they made for Valentine’s Day and Easter, and both of them said “chocolate candy.”
Wow, unbelievable. For years I cried over the disappearance of Hershey-ets. M&Ms;could not hold a candle to them. Then the Kissables came out and it was like being re-born!! I just bought a new package yesterday and thought, ugh what is the problem with these? I too thought they were old. Agree with Epicanis-tastes like Palmer fake chocolate.
Now Hershey’s isn’t just being cheap, it’s being environmentally irresponsible. Using palm oil destroys the orangutan habitat and is endangering wildlife. http://www.cspinet.org/palm/
I picked up a little bag of kissables yesterday and noticed a difference in taste from the last time I had some… which was months ago. So your article is confirmed as far as I’m concerned; there is a substantial difference in taste.
Hmm. Here in Canada I have noticed that Kissables have left the shelves almost completely. I figured that it was the demise of the reborn hershey-et again. :-( First the disappearance of the hershey-et, then hersheys pieces, now kissables. I will be equally disappointed if they bring out this lame attempt that you are describing.
Has anyone thought to leave some feedback with Hershey directly??
Hershey-et lover - yeah, unfortunately quite a few of us have written to Hershey’s and they insist that this is what we want and they make top notch products.
If you’ve written to them, you can post their response here.
I found your site on a google search after tasting a new bag and having to spit them out. Hershey has always had the best chocolate and the worlds worst marketing department. Now I guess they moved the marketing guys to the product development department. This is a real shame, I remember Hersheyettes from 40 years ago (plain and peanut!) and the incomparable taste of Hershey chocolate. The company survived for decades on one thing—great chocolate—what do they think they will finally beat Mars with lousy chocolate *and* lousy marketing?
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