The candy and wrapper
Hershey's 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 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, the Hershey KISSES were wrapped by hand but 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 the Hershey's KISS, 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 KISSES 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 Kisses was briefly interrupted due to the rationing of aluminum foil. Instead, the machines were re-purposed to create military chocolate (United States) 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 “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 sized, candy coated version of Kisses chocolates. They were discontinued in 2009.