The Best Idea Yet - 🥜 Reese’s PB Cups: From Frog Salesman to Candy Mogul | 14

Episode Date: January 14, 2025

French fries and pesto? Mango and sticky rice? Ice cream and olive oil?! Real ones know when it comes to surprisingly perfect food combos, nothing tops chocolate and peanut butter (or is it peanut butter and chocolate?) - best showcased by America’s top selling candy… Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. That distinct blend of milk chocolate and salty peanut butter was the result of a (happy) factory accident and a down-on-his-luck frog salesman (true story). HB Reese had 14 mouths to feed but beat the odds to become a real life Willy Wonka, inventing the #1 most popular Halloween candy in America (sorry, Skittles). Find out the psychological reason why our brains crave contrasting sensations, how leaning into your mistakes is the sweetest indulgence of all, and why Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups is the best idea yet. Be the first to know about Wondery’s newest podcasts, curated recommendations, and more! Sign up now at https://wondery.fm/wonderynewsletterFollow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting www.wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/ now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to the best idea yet early and ad free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Don't knock it till you try it, Jack. Don't knock what? Don't knock it till you try it. What are you talking about? Olive oil on ice cream. Because once you do olive oil on ice cream, you're gonna start putting olive oil on your yogurt.

And then breakfast and dessert are covered. I don't get either of those ideas. I was in Bangkok once, I had mango and rice. Have you had mango and rice? This is a good combo. Are we talking about perfect combinations? Surprisingly perfect combinations, Jack. Okay, can I just go like regular over here

and say scrambled eggs and ketchup? What about that? You're not gonna win any Michelin stars for this stuff, but I see where you're going with this, Jack. Chocolate chip cookie and a glass of milk. All right, Bobby Filet, I know what we're talking about. How about corduroy with cashmere? Well, the most perfect, surprising perfect combination

is peanut butter and chocolate. Peanut butter and chocolate, yetis, whenever Jack and I get an unexpected combo, we call it a Reese's moment. And of course, when we say Reese's, we're talking about Reese's peanut butter cups. That perfect blend of chocolate and peanut butter that actually comes from a very specific

and very secret way of roasting the peanuts. Reese's peanut butter cups are the most popular choice of Halloween candy for kids, and they're the second top-selling candy for adults right behind M&M's. Is it chocolate with peanut butter, or is it peanut butter with chocolate? Well, Jack, that's the great debate, but either way,

Reese's, they aren't just for trick-or-treating. Yet, he's with over $670 million in sales during spooky season alone. This brand makes an additional two and a half billion bucks during the rest of the year, making Reese's the top selling candy brand in America. And Reese's is owned by Hershey's, which claims a massive 35% share

of the $50 billion US candy market. Jack, could you sprinkle on some sweet context for us over there? Hershey's profit last year crossed $2 billion, which is well above Uber or Intel or any tech company funded by Andreessen Horowitz right now. And we should point out, Jack, that the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup was actually invented nearly 100 years ago in 1928. But it wasn't even invented by Hershey's.

Today we'll tell you the true inventor of the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, who went from a down-on-his-luck frog salesman to a real-life Willy Wonka. We'll tell you why Reese's is the only candy that gives you two, count them two, in each package. And the scientific explanation for why humans crave this surprising combo of flavors.

And why leaning into your mistakes is the most delicious indulgence of all. Let's unwrap this thing, and don't forget to peel off those little cup wrappers too. Jack, even if I had a peanut allergy, I'd jump into this episode. Because Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are truly the best idea yet. From Wondery and T-Boy, I'm Nick Martell.

And I'm Jack Kraviche Kraver. And this is the best idea yet. The untold origin stories of the products you're obsessed with. And the boldest takers who brought them to life. I got that feeling again. Something familiar but new. We got it coming to you. I got that feeling again.

They changed the game in one move. Crowds stroll through giant exhibition halls, marveling at innovations from across the globe. The hall of electricity is filled with blinding displays of brightly burning light bulbs and the scent of foods from across the globe fills the air as visitors sample exotic delights like Turkish coffee and Austrian sausages. This is the 1893 Chicago World Exposition, the fair that changed America.

It introduces electric streetlights to the masses. It debuts the zipper. It gives us Wrigley's gun, and it introduces the world's first ever Ferris wheel. But in the soaring atrium of the agriculture building sits the greatest confectionary marvel of the entire event. A 38 foot tall temple molded from 30,000 pounds of chocolate made by the German chocolatiers, the Stolwerk brothers.

Like if the Romans had a sweet tooth, they would have built this. It's three stories tall. Well, guess who sees this chocolate temple? Milton Hershey. Ah, Milton Hershey. Yeah, yet he's that Hershey. Milton Hershey, he pushes through the crowd.

He's trying to get a better look at this chocolate edifice thing. One of his bushy eyebrows rises, and through his perfectly manicured mustache, a smile emerges. You see, after some false starts and a few failed business attempts, Milton is now 36 years old, and he's America's top manufacturer of caramel candies. But seeing this temple of chocolate and all the people in all of it. It has him thinking that maybe caramel is passe,

maybe taffy is too old and maybe vanilla is vanilla. Maybe the future is really chocolate. This visit to the fair inspires Mr. Milton Hershey to introduce a chocolate coating to his caramels for the very first time. That is a big deal and we should sprinkle on some context here. In the 1800s, making chocolate at scale, it is nearly impossible because you have to grind the cocoa beans.

You got to make sure the cocoa butter is evenly distributed by mixing them for days to get the right texture. Up to 78 hours of constant, constant stirring. And if you mess it up, your chocolate will taste like sawdust. So this whole chocolate operation idea, it is way too costly to even consider. At this time, only a few factories in New York

even attempt to make chocolate at scale. And they do the whole process by hand. The days of constant stirring, it's done by some guy with gigantic forearms. There's also machinery being demoed at this epic World's Fair that can do everything we just said about chocolate in a fraction of the time and with more consistent, silky smooth results. These machines will fit nicely in Milton's factory in Pennsylvania, so he orders several of them and gets to work on his new chocolate covered caramels. But early adoption of these machines wasn't his only competitive advantage in the

chocolate industry. So let's go to the maps, man. What do we got? His location in Pennsylvania, that gave Milton an additional edge because the factory happens to be in the middle of Amish country. Location, location, location. And at the time before reliable refrigeration, the closer you were to a dairy farm, the fresher the milk you could get. And the fresher the milk, the better your caramels will taste. And get this, competitors who don't use fresh milk, they use paraffin wax. Now we should point out paraffin wax, it is safe to eat, but honestly, I'll take Amish milk over wax any day of the week, Jack. So by 1900, seven years after that fair, Milton sees the writing on the wall.

Chocolate covered caramels? Yeah, they've been doing okay. But chocolate bar sales? They are outpacing caramel. And now Hershey is ready to put everything into chocolate. So he makes a big move. He sells off the entire country leading caramel business and sets out to perfect the milk chocolate bar. And after a few years of trial and error,

Milton finally hits upon a winning formula. It is smooth. It is milky. It is without a hint of sawdust or paraffin wax. Chef's kiss. So he starts cranking out his new milk chocolate bar, selling them for five cents each. Now, Jack, I know we've got inflation as a factor here

and five cents doesn't sound like that much, but let's talk numbers for the initial Hershey's chocolate bar. In the first year, sales of this Hershey's nickel bar exceed $1 million, which would be $33 million today. And this success allows Milton Hershey to pull off one of the biggest conglomerate moves we'd ever seen.

He builds his own dairy for his own fresh milk. And then Nick, he buys an entire sugar cane plantation in Cuba so that he's got the milk and the sugar all to himself. This is vertical integration on an impressive scale but there's Mornak, something much wilder than buying the plantation in Cuba. He creates his own town. Jack, now this is vertical integration on steroids. He builds housing, he builds a church, he builds transportation and additional businesses

like gas stations, bowling alleys, even a theme park all around the epicenter, which is his Hershey's Chocolate Factory. And he names this town Hershey, Pennsylvania. Still a real town, by the way, still on the map. Now, unfortunately, there is no roaring river full of liquid chocolate, but Hershey town, it isn't just an operational win. It's also an HR and a marketing win because people want to come and work for Hershey because of the safe, secure, and fulfilling place that he created.

The town of Hershey, Pennsylvania, it actually starts poaching workers from far and wide, including one down on his luck dairy hand by the name of H.B. Reese. Oh, you hear that? Yeah, that's it. That's the shrill whistle that signals the end of another long shift at Summer's Cannon Company in the town of New Freedom, Pennsylvania. Among the workers streaming out the doors of this cavernous cannery is a tired looking man named Harry Burnett H.B. Reese. H.B. has worked every kind of odd job at this point. From fishery manager to dairy farmer,

he even did a stint raising frogs and selling those frogs to local restaurants. I gotta ask, what are the lily pad numbers? Do the frogs know about this whole operation? But at this point in his life, HB just can't catch a break. It was all looking so good when he married his wife, Blanche Edna, who came from a well-to-do family. But now the pressure is on.

HB and Blanche have nine kids. Plus his mom and his aunt, they live with them too, making it 13 mouths to feed. So HB's in-laws, they can only help so much and he can't rely on amphibians to feed a family of 11. I think we learned that in business school. So right now in 1916, money is tight, but HB doesn't let that bring him down. He hasn't found his perfect gig yet, but he's always gained to try new things and reinvent himself another time. So here's what our man HB does.

He hauls his tired body up the steps of his porch. He pushes open the door to this cramped two bedroom house. And the poor guy? He's been working all day. He wants just five minutes to himself to scour the paper for job opportunities before he just gets a little bit of shut eye. But as soon as he walks in the door, his kids jump on him. Robbie wants to piggyback. Clara demands he read her a story. John and Anna, they're fighting over in the corner and a searing pain shoots up HB's leg. Oh yeah, little Ralph

just jabbed him in the thigh with a pencil. And there's probably a toad loose in the living room on top of all of that. So Jack, it is pandemonium in the Reese house. HB, he finally balance his way over to the dining table, finding his newspaper and scanning the job section. And one item grabs his eye. It's a help wanted ad for dairy farm workers in a town called Hershey. By this point, Milton Hershey's chocolate making operation is in full swing. The town of Hershey is thriving, sales are soaring, and the company recently launched a hit new product, the Hershey's Kiss.

Now, funny thing yetis, H.B. himself, he's a little family history when it comes to the chocolate trade, because his mother used to make chocolate covered almonds and raisins. And maybe it's a sign that chocolate is. Because his mother used to make chocolate covered almonds and raisins. And maybe it's a sign that chocolate is actually in his future.

So HB finds a moment to himself to mail off his application for this promising new job. A few weeks later, he receives an envelope with a Hershey, Pennsylvania postmark. He's got an interview. And when he steps off the train, HB is stunned by what he sees. Cause what he's looking at is this town

that Hershey invented out of nowhere. They got grand buildings. Hershey, it is the Babylon of bonbons. But Nick, he's here to get a job. He can't be distracted by all those fancy Hershey perks. So he focuses, he nails the interview, and he gets that job. And he jumps in right away,

putting everything into his new role in the cocoa industry. He brings his wife, his nine children, and his two in-laws, and he packs them all up and moves into Hershey, Pennsylvania. Soon enough, Milton likes HB so much that he makes him the manager of his experimental dairy farm called the Round Barn, a circular barn, which at the time was pretty rare.

And actually I'm looking at a picture of it right now. It looks like a Hershey's kiss. I feel like there's some architectural inspo going on here, Jack. Now, when Jack and I say experimental, we're not talking like sci-fi experimental, Milton Hershey, he has a very specific R&D goal here. He wants to improve milk yields without losing quality.

And just like the CEO of any big corporation today, Milton knows the importance of investing in research and development to develop and grow his business. Google has Google X, which is their R&D wing that develops drones, satellites, and self-driving cars. Hershey's has a round barn to optimize milk. Same thing. Google was inspired by Hershey's. I think that's what we're insinuating. And this is where a friendship between HB and the big chocolate boss starts to blossom. Milton stops by every couple weeks to check in with HB,

to admire the cows, and to see how the dairy experiment is coming along. One day, when Milton shows up, he meets one of HB's young sons. It's little Ralphie, the kid who stuck his dad with the pencil earlier. Little Ralphie proudly tells Milton that he's been helping out around the barn. He's kind of treating his own kids like oompa-loompas, but Milton and his wife they love kids. They've actually always wanted to have a kid of their own, but it just hasn't happened for them. So Milton loves making a fuss about Ralph and all of Ralph's brothers and sisters

whenever he sees one of them hanging out at the round barn. And Milton, he's actually also taking a shine to Ralph's dad, H.B. Reese. H.B. is the kind of guy who's determined to be successful no matter what it takes and what adversity he faces, which actually reminds Milton of himself. He had his own fair share of failures before he founded the Hershey Company.

But unfortunately, two years after HB gets this epic job for Hershey, the Round Barn experiments aren't going well. The milking machines, they're unreliable and they're too costly to maintain. So Milton sadly shuts down his grand dairy experiment. This leaves HB unemployed again and not sure where to go from there. And if you think our boy is going back to hawking frogs after all that, then you don't know HB. So the pressure, it's back on for HB. He saved a little bit of money and he decides, you know what?

It's time to take a risk. It's time to stand up and launch his very own candy company. So begins the R&R Candy Company. He sets up shop in an old candy factory not far from Hershey, Pennsylvania. Like his mom before him, HB starts making chocolate almonds and raisins and selling them around town. But HB, he is bidding off more than he can chew. And he sinks all of his savings into new manufacturing equipment. But then he runs out of money to keep the whole production going. And in January of 1920, he even has to issue stock in R&R just to raise funds to keep the company afloat.

But HB just can't sell enough of his candies, so he shuts down the venture. It's another defeat for HB Reese. He packs it up and out of desperation, he starts working three full-time jobs at once. One at a paper mill, one as a butcher, and a third canning vegetables. There are no days off for our man HB.

And the wildest part, he and his wife, they have another baby, bringing the current family head count to 14. I mean, Jack, there are only so many caramels a kid can eat. This guy really is doing all he can, and he's barely surviving. Something's gotta give.

Now our favorite part about Hershey, Pennsylvania. Oh, it's the map. Jack, can I go full Magellan on this thing? Let's go, MapQuest. All right. Instead of a main street, Hershey, Pennsylvania has a milk street. Every detail of this geography is candy-themed. So let's head over to West Chocolate Avenue, real thing, where it is lunchtime in Hershey, PA.

And the hungry line of customers wait outside Finicci's Italian restaurant let's head over to West Chocolate Avenue, real thing, where it is lunchtime in Hershey P.A. And the hungry line of customers wait outside Fimici's Italian restaurant to be seated. As they look over the menu, a tantalizing smell wafts up from the basement. It's not fresh basil or simmering tomato sauce, but it's the aroma of bubbling taffy. A child then rushes up the steps from that basement

and pushes through the lunch crowd carrying a tray of conf tabby. A child then rushes up the steps from that basement and pushes through the lunch crowd carrying a tray of confectionary. Look who it is, Ralphie Reese. Yeah, it's Ralphie Jack. He's on his way to the Hershey factory to sell candy to the workers who were changed in shifts. Honestly, I think candy is the last thing I'd want after eight hours working on the Hershey's production line.

It's tough on the stomach. But I guess this means HB is back into the candy business. Jack, he is back, baby. HB, he actually moves his whole family back to Hershey where his father-in-law helped them buy a house. And although his in-laws were able to help with the housing, their pockets, they aren't deep enough to feed his football team of children.

So HB, he landed another job back with Hershey's and this time he's in the shipping room. HB knows he's got a good thing and he doesn't want to lose it again. So he works his butt off moving boxes here, boarding up boxes there, and he's quickly promoted to foreman. But HB, he still finds time to pull off the most millennial move yet. HB launches a side hustle. And actually he gets Milton's blessing to start making and selling candy while also working at Hershey and shipping. But Milton Hershey only has one condition.

That HB source all of his chocolate directly from Hershey. This is huge. Milton doesn't mind that HB is working on his own side hustle at the same time he's working for him. Milton sees how badly HB wants to succeed and instead of stifling him, he encourages his employee to chase his dream. Although Milton's not being entirely altruistic. Remember, he is also selling HB all of the chocolate for his little side hustle, so they're both benefiting from the situation. Either way, this side hustle is a win-win

for Hershey and Reese. Now at this point in HB's side hustle, his main product is actually a mixed boxed assortment filled with everything from peppermints to chocolate covered honeydew melon. And he keeps coming up with new recipes and new ideas and he tosses them into this box. He also develops a Lizzie bar and a Johnny bar.

Both are variations of coconut caramel chocolate bars, and each named after two of his many, many, many children. Now these bars, they're actually pretty popular. Sales begin to grow really quickly, and soon HB, he's to rent out the basement of that nearby Italian restaurant to have enough space to produce all of these orders for candy boxes. Some grandmas like making Gabagool on the floor above him, but HB, he's churning out coconut sugar on the floor below.

By 1923, HB's business is going so well that he decides to focus on it full time. He quits his job at Hershey and incorporates his new business as the HB Reese Candy Company. And Jack, once again, our guy Milton Hershey comes in like some kind of angel and gives HB his full blessing. He also gives him an astute piece of advice. Focus on one hero product when you're starting out. Don't get distracted by trying to perfect all 20 different types of treats in your box of chocolates. And remember besties Milton, Arashi?

He wasn't an overnight nougat sensation. Like he didn't go viral with a variety of gummies. His business success didn't happen until he focused on one hero project, caramel candies. Then he saw the opportunity in chocolate, so he focused all his energy and his efforts on creating One Hero Chocolate product, the Hershey Chocolate Bar. And only once he had perfected that bar, did he branch out into other lines like the Hershey Kiss.

There are so many examples of companies that followed this advice. Coca-Cola, they launched with one insanely successful soda product instead of a dozen soda flavors. Or Crocs, they launched with one shoe. They didn't start with a wide line of different footwear. I mean, Jack, if Crocs started out with stilettos, boots, and croc clogs, it wouldn't be the business it is today. HB thanks Milton for the advice, but he puts it in his back pocket as the thrill and stress of starting yet another candy business takes over his life once more. So Jack, how about we pull a forest gulp and jump into this box of HB Reese's chocolates?

What do you think? You never know what you're going to get. All right. So what is he selling exactly? Over here, he's selling a coconut cream. Okay. And Jack, over here, he's got chocolate jets. Over there, he's got peanut clusters.

And I think I see a cream caramel butterscotch down here. Each little candy is like a little venture investment for H.B. Reese. Each one is a different flavor. It's like a startup that could take off or people could hate it. So out of all these different flavors and varieties, how does H.B. start to zero in on his most famous candy

that will one day bear his own name? If the future commercials are to be believed. One day HB is coming down some steps with a bag of chocolate. Mmm, chocolate, he says to himself as he takes a bite. But he's so engrossed in this chocolate that he fails to notice a roller skate on the step in front of him. He steps, he slips, and his chocolate goes flying into the air. Meanwhile at the

bottom of the steps is a little kid tucking into a delicious jar of peanut butter. HB's chocolate soars up over the little kid's head and then splat lands right in his jar of peanut butter. You got peanut butter on my chocolate? Well you got chocolate in of peanut butter. You got peanut butter in my chocolate. Well, you got chocolate in my peanut butter. Bravissimo! That's it. Like the Big Bang or electrons smashing into protons,

that's how the chocolate peanut butter cup is born. Okay, didn't exactly go down like that. According to HB Reese's grandson, Andrew Reese, this is wild, but HB didn't even like the taste of peanut butter mixed with chocolate. Can you believe that? I almost respect him more that he did not like the taste of the product that one day made him famous.

I know, it proves that HB was a savvy businessman. Yeah, it does, man. And his own personal dislike doesn't blind him to the opportunity that he sees right now. You see, it is H-Beam. He likes to keep tabs on what's hot and what is not. On a delivery run to a local shop, he says, Hey, Mr. Thompson, what's selling these days? And the owner is going to tell him that people can't get enough of one specific candy. And that candy happens to be peanut butter chocolates. In fact those peanut butter chocolates are so popular that

the suppliers can't even keep up with demand. So peanut butter chocolates were already a thing in the 1920s and they were already popular. So Reese didn't invent the peanut butter cup but he wanted in on this business, but he had no idea how to make them. So he immediately goes out and buys a 50 pound can of peanut butter to experiment with. Skippy or Jif? Crunchy or smooth? We don't know, but we do know that he grabbed a lot of spoons, a bunch of napkins, and a gallon of milk, and he got to work experimenting. At first he simply rolls peanut butter into balls and then hand dips them into melted chocolate. Could it stop there Jack? Sounds pretty good to

me. But we should point out there is one problem here. The process is really hard to automate. Getting the chocolate covering the peanut butter, keeping the integrity of the shape of the sphere, it's the chocolate industry's equivalent of the Apollo missions. Peanut butter and chocolate just can't be done at scale. But here's where HB takes a page or two out of Milton Hershey's book. First, he sees this production bottleneck as an opportunity. If he can do with these chocolate peanut butter balls what Hershey did with the chocolate bar, then his upside could be huge. I'm already salivating in anticipation. HB realizes the solution to scalable chocolate and peanut butter could simply be the shape. What if instead of balls, you used cups? Because candy cups fit snugly into molds,

and molds make it easier to keep the size consistent, making it faster to move them along the production line. It's all about the molds. The second lesson HB adopts for Milton Hershey is to take control of the supply chain. When it came to chocolate, he was good to go. Thanks to his agreement with Milton, his old buddy, he's got those cocoa contracts locked down. But when it comes to his second key ingredient, peanut butter, HB was at the whims of the market. So he makes moves to create his own peanut butter and he decides to roast the peanuts.

He buys a load of raw peanuts and he gets a hold of some old roasting machines to make trial batches of his own peanut butter. And you know what, Jack? He takes the first scoop out. He gets it on his finger. He brings it up to his mouth. And even though he can't even stand the scent of peanut butter, it's delicious.

He's tasting his own roasted peanut butter and he can hear the cash register clinging as he goes. What he just tasted is the very first batch of Reese's peanut butter. Pretty soon, he's perfected the process and decides to ramp up his production capacity as he prepares to release his new peanut butter cup to the world. And his first move, Jack? Upgrade the factory with some brand new state of the art roasting machines. But funny thing, as the first batch of product rolls off the line, there's one noticeable problem. Something's off. The taste,

the smell, it's just not what he expected. After a whole bunch of trial and error and isolating variables, he and his staff discover that the older roasting machines had actually been malfunctioning and were burning the peanuts. But that mistake had unknowingly given the Reese's Peanut Butter a unique flavor that set it apart from all their competitors. And H.B. he just embraces it. You know, happy accidents, they occur all the time in business. And for Reese's, the happy accident was using those old roasting machines that burned the peanuts. Nick, wasn't it Bob Ross that said there's no mistakes, there's only happy accidents? He'd be proud of the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

I'm proud you just connected the world's greatest painter to the world's greatest candy. So HB sets out to burn more peanuts. They use the new machines, but they crank it up to 11 to get that toasting, roasty flavor of the old machines. And with the peanut butter cups ready to go, he tosses them into his assortment box in 1928, and they're called, I'm ready, Penny Cups. Penny Cups, oh, but Jack, what about the advice that Milton Hershey gave him, right?

Like focus on one Euro product? Where is he, man? Yeah, he's not doing that yet. He's still got a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get. It turns out besties, HB has a similar entrepreneurial mindset, but he's not ready to bet everything

on these peanut butter cups. He's a little bit stubborn too. So he's mixing them into his assortment box along with the jujubes and the whatever whatevers. And he's also supplying them individually wrapped in a wrapper for stores. HB hits the road to promote his assortment boxes, which now contain the penny

cups. He even sets up special demonstration displays in department store windows. Employees hand coat the peanut butter cups with chocolate for all to see. Oh and Jack, what do people think about the taste of this brand new concoction? Well it's peanut butter and chocolate Nick. Yeah. So yeah, they love it. Oh yeah, they love the taste. It's a butter and chocolate, Nick. Yeah. So, yeah, they love it. Oh, yeah, they love the taste. It's a little unexpected, but it works. Yeah. And there's actually a scientific reason for it.

It's called dynamic sensory contrast. Basically, your taste buds go absolutely bananas when you eat something with contrasting textures and contrasting taste. The smooth, sweet chocolate with the slightly crunchy salty peanut butter. You also experience this phenomenon with Apple Pie Alamode. Hot and cold. Sweet and sour chicken.

Sweet and salty. It is thanks to that tension, that contrast, our taste buds go so crazy they can even override our sense of feeling full. And that's why you may even have found yourself looking up from an empty share size pack of Reese's and realizing with absolute shock that the serving size was one cup. Been there. The contrast of savory and sweet in the peanut butter cup tells a story. HB, he's onto something. His product is a hit.

He's got the scalability. Those machines and the cup molds, they are ready to mass produce. And he's onto something. His product is a hit. He's got the scalability. Those machines and the cup molds, they are ready to mass produce. And he's got the marketing thing. Like we said, people are literally licking windows to watch the peanut butter melt onto the chocolate. Convinced, HB finally hits his stride with the peanut butter cup in September, 1929.

He's finally got his hero product. But September, 1929, isn't that an important month in history, Nick? Yeah, Jack, I'm checking the calendars here and September 1929 is... The biggest financial collapse in history. Besties, an epic Wall Street crash kicks off the Great Depression and our man HB, he just went all in on a celebratory treat treat yourself candy startup, tough timing. All right, Jack, let's set the scene. Because with 25% unemployment and wages down 40%,

the early 1930s is a bad time in America. H.B., he suddenly can't make payroll. And so he's resorting to giving employees boxes of candy that they can hopefully sell or trade for groceries just to make ends meet. And H.B., he's still stocking stores with his candy, but he is barely staying afloat. He's selling on consignment,

and he's even getting chocolate from Hershey's on credit. Until one day he rolls up at the Hershey factory to get more chocolate to make more of his product. But he's stopped in his tracks at the door. The manager says to him, HB, I'm really sorry to have to do this to you, but you gotta pay up. The endless chocolate tab has officially run out. But just when things look darkest, he runs into Milton Hershey himself walking across the street who immediately reopens that chocolate credit line. I mean, Jack, talk about a guardian angel.

This is a chocolate factory owner who happens to be incredibly nice and provides limitless candy supply funding. Milton Hershey, the first sugar daddy. Literally, he throws HB a lifeline that could save the peanut butter cup as we know it. By 1933, HB has barely pulled his company out of a nosedive, thanks in no small part to the generosity of Milton Hershey, ROG's sugar daddy. And it's also thanks to HP's hero product, the One-Cent Peanut Butter Cup.

These One-Cent individual peanut butter chocolates are an affordable splurge during this general economic gloom. But there's one thing every hero needs. It's a name. This is the moment when the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are born. Oh, the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, finally.

Oh, and HB Jack, he's got a flair for the dramatic that Lady Gaga would appreciate. Get this, he adds a tagline to the packaging, and here it is, made in Chocolate Town, so they must be good. He's making good use of the Hershey connection again, but not saying something trademarked, so he can do it for free.

This is like when commercials refer to the Super Bowl as the big game. Chocolate Town is a stand in for Hershey. So how do these newly rebranded peanut butter cups do when they hit the market, Jack? Pass the celebratory wet wipe because they're a massive hit. Besties, these things are so popular that by 1935, Reese's has grown to 70 employees, including HB's six sons. And HB, he's finally able to pay off the rest of his mortgage on both his house and his factory. And then just as peanut butter cups start hockey stick growth and going Gretzky,

the chocolate hits the fan. Another dire moment for the country when World War II begins and introduces one of the greatest possible threats to a candy business, sugar rationing. Yetis, this is a disaster for confectionary makers everywhere, including and especially in chocolate town. As the US is dragged into the war, rationing affects nearly every single industry. And you'd expect Hershey's candy to be hit the hardest.

But get this, for Hershey's, the war actually does the opposite. Remember when we mentioned Milton Hershey bought up that sugar cane farm down in Cuba? Well, the company controls its entire production process, including growing its own sugar. Oh, and right before the war, the US Army approached Hershey's to provide chocolate bars for soldiers' rations. So he just snagged a contract with the military as well. So Milton Hershey has as much sugar as he needs, and he just got a deal with the US government. He's having his cake and he's eating it too. Meanwhile, Reese's doesn't have its own sugar plantations. But HB has a secret weapon of his own

because those peanut butter cups that everyone loves are half peanut butter. They actually use much less sugar than nearly every other candy out there. Oh, and then Jack, this may be one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard. But early on during the war, Fortune Magazine does a cover story on Milton Hershey. And in that interview,

the reporter describes Milton reaching into his desk for a box of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and saying to the reporter, hey, take these delicious treats home for your wife and family. Enjoy. Just constantly hyping up his buddy H.B. Reese. He's the ultimate wingman. H.B. Reese lives out the rest of his life as one of the great Coco Kings. When he retires he gives the company to his six sons. He wraps it up and hands it to him. But none of his daughters, which I would feel some type of way about if I were them. And he heads down to Florida for a well-deserved semi retirement. H.B. Reese dies of a heart attack just before his 77th birthday in 1956. But that's not the end for Reese's peanut butter cuffs at all, is it Jack? H.B.'s sons go on to

modernize the operation and expand the business. By 1962, they doubled the revenues to about $26 million. It's still dwarfed by Hershey, which was bringing in about $177 million in revenue at the time, but still not too shabby for a business built on one product with two ingredients. But don't toss out the wrapper quite yet, because even with all of that growth, there's still travel ahead. Turns out it's pretty hard to run a company with, you know, six sons in charge. Just ask the Jacuzzi brothers.

And the battle over the future of Reese's rages at the family meetings. Should they do a spin-off caramel cup? Are we gonna get disrupted by almond butter? Is anyone concerned about the cashew butter? And here's where it comes full circle. On April 12th, 1963, the Reese brothers announced their selling to none other

than the Hershey Chocolate Corporation. The perfect partnership. It just makes sense. Reese's is the second largest buyer of Hershey's chocolate after Mars. So the brothers decided to sell for $23.3 million, which today would be about $200 million. Not a bad exit for the Reese family.

You could even call it a sweet deal. By 1969, just six years after Hershey acquired Reese's, those peanut butter cups, they're Hershey's best selling product with more than 300 million cups sold that year. That makes it even more popular than the Hershey sold that year. That makes it even more popular than the Hershey bar that acquired it. This arguably makes Reese's one of the greatest acquisitions of

all time. Like, yeah, Zuck bought Instagram for a billion dollars, but I think Hershey's got a better ROI on the Reese's. Well, insider info here, but two out of three acquisitions don't work out. They fail for a lot of reasons, but rarely does the brand that was acquired overtake its parent company in sales, especially in such a short period as six years, like with Reese's and Hershey's. I can think of one thing that may explain this success. H.B.

Reese was fond of saying this one wonderful quote. If you make a product that both young and old enjoy, your potential customers are limited only by the number of people on earth. And he's right. Reese's peanut butter cups are pretty universally loved. And they're still the number one most popular Halloween candy in the country, which is the ultimate barometer of financial health for a candy business. But even more than that, they're an industry defining product.

People don't say I want a peanut butter cup. They say, give me a Reese's. And that's just the type of brand awareness you can't buy. Now that's not to say besties that Reese's is afraid to innovate. They've also experimented with caramel flavors. Throwback to Milton's early days, crunchy peanut butter, honey roasted peanut butter, even a crunchy cookie flavor that mixes crushed chocolate cookies into the peanut butter. But besties, there is one thing in particular that Reese's doesn't budge on. When you buy a package, it actually comes with two candies inside.

And the reason is because HB always believed that two small cups made his customers feel like they were getting more for their money. He could have given you one large cup, but instead gave two smaller cups. Same cost, but better feeling. And that's the type of psychological strategy that only an ex-Frog salesman with 14 kids, three failed jobs, and an epic eye for opportunity could have ever cooked up. Okay, Jack, now that we've learned the secret to success for the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

Just burn the nuts. What is your takeaway? My takeaway is the Reese's moment. When two contrasting elements come together in one product and the tension is why you love it. Reese's is salty, but it's sweet. Birkenstock shoes, they're trendy, but they're ugly. Sabrina Carpenter songs, they're sweet, but they're edgy.

Now, the scientific term for these contrasts, as we heard with Reese's, is dynamic sensory contrast. With advertising, David Ogilvie calls it tension. Either way, whether you call it contrast or tension, it will underlies any great story or product. This phenomenon, the two opposing forces in one product, it creates a complexity and it enhances each element. From fashion to food, we like the taste of contrast.

What about you, Nick? What's your takeaway? Jack, my takeaway is that the best bosses treat their employees leaving as a graduation. From a manager's perspective, a star employee leaving the company, that is sad, frustrating, painful news. You're losing them. But it's also something to be celebrated because you helped them move on to something better. And honestly, when you send an

employee off to do great things, they may come back in a big way. I think Milton Hershey completely understood this. Oh, he totally got this. It's like if you want to mentor employees at work, you need to channel Milton Hershey. That's who you need to have in your mind. When an employee leaves, don't treat them like they're quitting, treat them like they're graduating. But Jack, before we go,

it's time for our favorite part of the show, the best facts yet. Our favorite tidbits and factoids we couldn't fit into the story, but we cannot leave you without. All right, Jack, why don't you kick us off? What do we got, man? Reese's Pieces were invented in 1978

after Hershey's acquired Reese's, and they did fine when they were introduced into the market. But it wasn't until a little film called E.T. came out four years later that sales started surging. Hershey gave Universal a million dollars to market their Reese's Pieces in the movie without even seeing the script. After the premiere of ET, Reese's Pieces hit top shelf numbers with sales. Get this, somewhere between a 65 and 85% revenue surge.

Hershey's executives, they estimated that their $1 million investment ended up bringing in $26 million bucks in PC sales. Definitely one of the most successful product placements at all time. And just to settle the debate once and for all, how do you pronounce it, Nick? It's Mario, not Mario. I mean, it's Reese's, not Reese's. I'm willing to concede that I've been mispronouncing Reese's this entire time. It's not Reese's Pieces.

The Pieces throws you off. Right, right. No, it's the Reese's Pieces that made it clear to me that I've been doing it wrong. What the heck is Pieces? They're Pieces. Therefore, it's Reese's. And that, my friends, is why Reese's Peanut Butter Cups is the best idea yet. Now, Jack, I got a nice cold ice cream with olive oil waiting for you.

I'm willing to try it. Yeti's on the next episode of The Best Idea Yet. It's the hard rockin' story of the guitar that changed rock and roll, the Fender Stratocaster. Follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of The Best Idea Yet early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts.

Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. The Best Idea Yet is a production of Wondery.com slash survey. The best idea yet is a production of Wondery hosted by me, Nick Martel and me, Jack Kraviche Kramer. Hey, if you have a product you're obsessed with, but you wish you knew the backstory, drop us a comment. We'll look into it for you. Oh, and don't forget to rate and review the podcast.

Our senior producers are Matt Beagle and Chris Gaultier. Peter Arcuni is our producer. Our senior managing producer is Nick Ryan and Taylor Sniffin is our managing producer. Our associate producer and researcher is H Conley. This episode was written by Alex Burns and Adam Skews. We use many sources in our research, including Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, The Untold Story by Andrew R. Reese and Atlas Obscura's Was it Hershey or Reese that made the Peanut Butter cups great? By Hayley Lieberman. Sound design and mixing by CJ Drummler.

Fact checking by Molly Artwick. Music supervision by Scott Velazquez and Jolina Garcia for Freesan Sync. Our theme song is Got That Feelin' Again by Blac-a-Lac. Executive producers for Nick and Jack Studios are me, Nick Martel. And me, Jack Ravitchy Kramer. Executive producers for Wondery are Dave Easton, Jenny Lauer Beckman, Erin O'Flaherty, and Marshall Lewin. So, get this, the Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Cromby as their new leader.

Bonnie who? I just sent you her profile, her first act as leader asking donors for a million bucks for her salary. That's excessive. She's a big carbon tax supporter. Oh yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh get out of here. She even increased taxes in this economy. Yeah. Higher taxes, carbon taxes. She sounds expensive. Bonnie Crombie and the Ontario Liberals. They just don't get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC Party.