Hershey tried

Ever since Hershey announced they were buying Scharffen Berger, you knew they were working to get into a more acceptable chocolate business. Something that wasn’t necessarily made for the masses and quite possibly was a little upscale. So here’s their attempt.

I saw these online some time ago but just recently found them in the store. Its dark chocolate from Hershey. Wait, that’s not new, you say, they have always made dark chocolate. True, but they always made very bad dark chocolate. Mostly because they flavored it with vanillin and probably used cheap beans. These bars? Have no vanillin.

Hershey: Sooooo, we’d like to know about your chocolate.
Scharffen Berger: Yes?
H: What is this ingredient you use?
SB: Vanilla?
H: Yes, is that some form of artificial vanillin?
SB: *slapping head*

Bar #1 is the straight dark bar. They went with the mainstream and actually put the cacao content on the front. Notice they wrote “cacao” and not “cocoa”. Very trendy, they did their homework. They also have marketed this as being full of antioxidants. Very good! These guys are on the ball.

Ok, here’s where it gets wierd. On the back is a little blurb about antioxidants and what they do for you, but along with that is the ubiquitous United States induced warning.

“…however, like most indulgent treats, Hershey’s Extra Dark should be enjoyed in moderation. A serving of Hershey’s Extra Dark Pure Chocolate is 3 blocks (37 g) and has 210 calories and 13 g of fat.”

I just about died when I saw it. Its like the excessively litigious society here has forced candy makers to warn people not to eat too much, because otherwise they will get sued by people who claim the chocolate bar made them fat and they didn’t know enough to stop eating it. Just like McDonald’s. Insane.

They also have a separate line above the nutritional information section (which also lists the serving size and all that stuff in case you missed it in the warning label), which states that the total calories for the entire bar is 550. So if you missed the warning and can’t do the math (2.5 servings x 210 calories/serving), they have put it right up there and left no room for doubt.

Apparently, the Hershey’s legal department is right next door to marketing. :D

Oh yes, one other odd point related to the vanilla thing above. They don’t list vanilla on the ingredients. They list “natural vanilla flavor”. I’m thinking vanilla extra or oil or something like that.

Ok, so the dark chocolate does not taste bad. Its not super but it tastes like real dark chocolate and not that crappy “special dark” junk that Hershey has made for years. It kinda tastes like a semi-sweet chocolate chip would. Not so awful but not good enough that I would be buying it again.

The other flavors were really odd and I wouldn’t have normally bought them but since it was Hershey’s first try, I figured I would give them a shot. The next one was with cranberries, blueberries, and almonds. I’m not sure where they got that combo but I think because it sounded wholesome or something.

It pretty much tasted the same as the other bar except for the occassional bit of almond or chewy cranberry/bluberry. I couldn’t tell which was which in there, and they were very small bits and there weren’t many of them. The one drawback of this bar is that it has high fructose corn syrup in it (poison).

The last one had macademia nuts and cranberries and, again, it tasted pretty much like the others. I could spot the cranberry in this occassionally (little red spot or small chewy blob). This bar (along with the other fruity bar) had sunflower oil as the last ingredient. I’m not sure what that does but maybe it helps in processing or something.

So all in all, I’d say Hershey has done a very good first attempt. They dumped the vanillin, they studied the current market and went for something that followed the information on antioxidants, and they even got a little fancy with the flavors. The warning label was a bit much, but that takes nothing away from the bar itself.

I’m thinking we are going to see some very good things come out of Hershey soon. As soon as they fix the base chocolate so that it has a bit of flavor, I think they might have some very good chocolate.

One more extra. For those of you looking for something very cool to wear in chocolate this year. Chocolate shirt is the place. Although, I have the feeling its not going to help you if you are trying to stay away from the stuff. :)

This entry was posted on Friday, November 25th, 2005 at 9:15 pm and is filed under Chocolate Friday. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.