Hershey's Kisses

**Hershey's Kisses** (stylized as "**KISSES**") is a brand of chocolate first produced by the Hershey Company in 1907. The bite-sized pieces of chocolate have a distinctive conical shape, sometimes described as flat-bottomed teardrops. Hershey's Kisses chocolates are wrapped in squares of lightweight aluminum foil. A narrow strip of paper (called a plume) sticks out from the top of each Hershey's Kiss wrapper. Originally designed as a flag for the "Hershey's" brand, the printed paper plumes were added to the Kisses product wrapper in 1921 in order to distinguish the Hershey's Kiss from its competitors who offered similar products.

# History

When first manufactured in 1907, Hershey's Kisses were wrapped by hand. In 1921, a machine was used so the Kisses would be wrapped automatically. This machinery also added the paper plume or paper strip flag to the aluminum foil wrapper to identify Hershey's Kisses, replacing the original small square of printed tissue that was inside the foil wrapper.

In 1924, Milton S. Hershey received a registered design trademark (Reg. 0186828) for "foil wrapped conical configuration with plume" which included the paper plume sticking out from the top of the aluminum foil wrapper. In 1976, Hershey received a registered trademark for the Hershey's Kisses foil wrapper. During 1942, production of Hershey's Kisses was briefly interrupted due to the rationing of aluminum foil. Instead, the machines were re-purposed to create military chocolate D ration bars for the soldiers in World War II. According to military historians, these chocolate D rations served two purposes: as a morale boost, and as a high-energy, pocket-sized emergency ration. The ingredients of these four-ounce bars were a blend of chocolate, sugar, cocoa butter, skim milk powder, and oat flour, containing 600 calories. The specification for the D ration chocolate bars was that it had to taste "a little better than a boiled potato" so troops would only use them for emergencies. By the end of World War II, Hershey's had produced more than 3 billion D ration chocolate bars.

# Popularity

Kisses are one of the most popular brands of candies in the US. In 1989, the chocolate drops were the 5th most popular chocolate brand in the United States, spawning sales that topped $400 million. More than 70 million Hershey's Kisses chocolates are produced each day at the company's two factories. Today's Kisses brand chocolates use Hershey's original milk chocolate formula.

In 2005, Hershey's Kissables were introduced as a smaller candy-coated version of Kisses chocolates. They were discontinued in 2009.

# Kisses brand varieties

Though originally made of solely milk chocolate, many variations of the Kisses brand of chocolates and candies have since been introduced. Hershey introduces and discontinues new Kisses flavors constantly as part of its standard Kisses offering, including holidays. In addition to the standard milk chocolate, varieties include caramel-filled, Special Dark, and hazelnut.

# Wrapper history and varieties

When introduced in 1907, Hershey's Kisses chocolates originally were wrapped by hand. The automated wrapping machinery was introduced in 1921.

The original wrapper was silver-colored foil and Hershey's Kisses were only available in this single color for decades. In 1962, Hershey became one of the first companies to change its wrappers for seasonal sales. That was the first year that Kisses chocolates were available in different colored foil wrappers: red, green, and silver-wrapped candies were manufactured to coincide with the Christmas season. This idea was the suggestion of John Figi, owner of Figi's "Gifts in Good Taste"—a mail-order food gifts company based in Marshfield, Wisconsin. The green and red colored wrapped chocolates were featured for the first time in the Figi's Christmas catalog.

In 1968, pastel blue, pink, and green wrappers were introduced for Easter, and in 1986, Valentine's Day-themed wrappers of red and silver were introduced. Xs and Os have also appeared on pink and red wrappers as well as little red hearts on silver wrappers for Valentine's Day. "Fall Harvest" colors were introduced in 1991. Independence Day has silver with red stripes and blue-starred wrappers. Pink wrappers with "ribbons" on them to support breast cancer research have also appeared. Camouflage wrappers are also available, primarily on military bases. Kisses Dark Chocolates come in a deep purple wrapper. The Halloween themed Kisses Candy Corn candies come in a wrapper whose colors imitate the color of a candy corn with yellow, white and orange stripes swirling around the candy.

In 2016 four limited Holiday wrapper varieties were released: Santa hats, Kissmas sweaters that resemble knit Christmas sweaters, Kissmas Trees with plumes that read "Fa La La", and "Kissmas" Presents with plumes that read from me to you. The Christmas themed Kisses Candy Cane candies also come in a wrapper whose colors imitate the color pattern (red stripes and white chocolate). The original silver (for regular) and gold (for almonds) wrappers are available year-round.

# Paper plume

All Kisses wrappers have the paper strip called a plume as an identification tag sticking from the top of the foil wrapper. When the paper plume was added to the Kisses wrapper in 1921, originally it was a flag for the "Hershey's" brand, distinguishing Hershey's Kisses from its competitors.  A few years later in 1924, Hershey received a registered US trademark for its wrapper design, consisting of the conical foil wrapper plus the paper plume. Later "KISSES" was printed on the paper plume, as well as other Kisses flavors. The company has also added special variety plumes (such as "cheesecake"). Special messages have been available for various occasions, including "Happy Halloween" and "Love is in the air".

# Advertising

"Christmas Bells" is a commercial in which Hershey's Kisses, fashioned as a handbell choir, perform the Christmas carol "We Wish You a Merry Christmas". It premiered in 1989 and has run each holiday season since in the United States; it is the longest-running television commercial for the Hershey brand. In 2020, Hershey's introduced a new "Bells to Blossoms" version of the ad, but was criticized for changing a 30-year running iconic holiday tradition. The company made the decision to air both the "classic" and newer versions of the holiday ad throughout the holiday season.

# Ingredients and nutrition information

Beginning with its own consumer research into product information, in 2015 Hershey led the SmartLabel initiative. Hershey's was the first brand to adopt this Grocery Manufacturers Association mobile-scannable packaging standard.

Kisses ingredients are cane sugar, milk, chocolate, cocoa butter, milk fat, lecithin, and natural flavor. A 1.45-ounce serving of Hershey's Kisses consists of seven Kisses pieces. Kisses has the following nutrition information:

* 200 Calories
* Total fat 12g
* Saturated fat 7g
* Trans fat 0g
* Cholesterol 10mg
* Sodium 35mg
* Total carbohydrate 25g
* Dietary fiber 1g
* Total sugars 23g
* Protein 3g
* Vitamin D 25.8 iu
* Calcium 80.8mg
* Iron 1.4mg
* Potassium 147.7mg

### **Additives**

Hershey's Hugs and Hershey's Kisses Cookies 'N' Creme are made with the ingredient PGPR (Polyglycerol polyricinoleate, E476), which is used as a cheaper replacement for cocoa butter.

# Broken tip controversy

On December 9, 2018, a member of the Wedding Cookie Table Community on Facebook posted a picture of a tip-less Kiss, wondering “Do this year’s Kisses look like this for you? Or are the tops broken off?” Other members of the group began to check their Kisses and as a result, dozens of others posted in the group that many, but not all, of them were found to be missing their tips. Twitter users soon picked up on the controversy and began to post pictures of Kisses that were also tip-less.

Hershey representatives had responded to the group's messages. At first, customer service told consumers that it was deliberate so the pieces did not fall off after production, but later on, they said the company was looking into the cause. In a statement, Jeff Beckman, a Hershey spokesman, said, "We love our Kisses as much as our consumers. We make more than 70 million Kisses a day here in Hershey, PA, and we want each of them looking as great as they taste. The iconic, conical shape is one of the reasons families have loved Kisses for generations. We shape the tip on our classic, solid Milk and Dark Chocolate Kisses to create that iconic appearance. And while there has always been some variability in that process, we are working to improve the appearance because it's as important to us as it is to our fans."