What can be more exciting than having the first Hershey’s Chocolate World in Southeast Asia? Its like being in absolute chocolate heaven! Hershey is one of the largest and oldest chocolate manufacturers in the United States, famous for its Hershey’s Kisses. The store is pretty much a sea of orange, brown and silver, with a dab of sunny colors from Hershey’s cousins’ – Twizzlers, Jolly Ranchers and Bubble Yum!

Rows and rows of Hershey’s treats are lined up on the shelves ranging from Hersheys chocolate and strawberry syrup, to bottles of Reese peanut butter, all good for jazzing up your home-made ice cream sundae. And while you’re at it, why not pepper that sundae with Hershey’s cinnamon or dark chocolate cookies?

And who could miss out on Hershey’s iconic kisses that come in all sizes – although one needs to exercise discretion on which kisses are suitable for consumption. At Hershey’s, its not just about the chocolate kisses; there are also coin bank kisses, key chain kisses, toy kisses and even save-the-earth kisses bags. Ah, I feel so loved!

Did you know that almost 80 million kisses are produced each day in the United States? It is not known exactly how Hershey’s Kisses got its name, but the story goes that the candy was named for the sound or motion of the chocolate being deposited during the manufacturing process. Muack!

We actually didn’t know that the distinctive paper ribbon added to the top of the Kiss is called a “Niggly Wiggly”. The inspiration for using the paper ribbon as a trademark is perhaps to distinguish the American Kiss from its Italian cousin – Perugina’s Baci (which is Italian for kiss!)

If you turn to the contents of a Hershey’s package, you will notice that it is labeled as “chocolate candy” or “chocolaty” instead of “milk chocolate” or “made with chocolate”. That’s because Hershey’s chocolate uses vegetable oil instead of cocoa butter in order to reduce the cost of production. Because of this, the new versions of Hershey’s no longer meet the United States Food and Drug Administration’s definition of milk chocolate.

This is what I call creating a chocolate hub in Singapore!







Now doesn’t he look happy?

