Now they're ruining Reese's? Well . . .
It's complicated.
Everyone has a favorite candy, and every candy has a fan. There’s some oddball out there who can’t get enough Circus Peanuts. There are people who pine for bygone confections like “Rabbit Cake” or “Oodles O’ Boodles” only sold by strange vintage candy outlets. When I hit the homepage for Atkinson Candy, I’m back in 1966: Chic-O-Sticks, Slo-Pokes, Black Cows. I’m sure someone still makes the Snirkle. I’m sure someone sells the grail of jellied rectangles, the all-black pack of Chuckles. But I’ll pass on all those items, because I know what I want.
What I want is a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Alas, according to AP, that’s a bit problematic now:
The grandson of the inventor of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups has lashed out at The Hershey Co., accusing the candy company of hurting the Reese’s brand by shifting to cheaper ingredients in many products.
Brad Reese, 70, said in a Feb. 14 letter to Hershey’s corporate brand manager that for multiple Reese’s products, the company replaced milk chocolate with compound coatings and peanut butter with peanut crème.
Oh yum. What’s for dessert? Gosh I hope it’s compound coatings. I’m sure it’s a perfectly fine industry term, but to us laymen “compound coatings” sounds like you’re painting a car.
This seems to be a perfect case of encrapification1, the process by which everything gets incrementally worse. Every food, every experience, every aspect of daily life and commerce, encrapified by bean counters, hedge funds, cost-cutters, and other MBA types who make something worse so the bottom line looks better, and they get a bonus that sets them up for life. You can understand the temptation. Imagine it’s your first day as as a product manager, the top boss calls you in for a meeting, and says:
“You’ve a choice. You can make the Three Musketeers bar 4% smaller and reduce the density of the already over-fluffed nougat, or you can leave it exactly as it is. The former option will pay you $3.2 million. The latter option, well, base salary. Which will it be?”
“What if I changed the name to the Two Musketeers? Would we save just as much money?”
“Nnnnnoo, that’s not how it works.”
“Oh, sorry, in my last job we reduced the headcount to cut costs. Well, then we could call it the Four Musketeers and make the bar 6% smaller. People would think they were getting a better deal. I can see the label now - More Musketeers, Same Great Taste.”
“Interesting. Was there actually a fourth?”
“Yes, D’Artagnan, everyone’s favorite. We could actually reduce the size by 10 percent, chop up the remaining bar into four parts, and say ‘all for one and four for you,’ or something. Anyway, yes, I’ll take the extra money so I can retire at 50 and live in a nice safe enclave populated exclusively by people like myself. Why wouldn’t I?”
It is a test of character. If you could replace “Milk Chocolate” with “Chocolatesque Shellac” in exchange for a billion dollars, you’d do it, so don’t get all high-minded on me here. If you were assured an eternal life of ease and pleasure if you signed off on “Dense Legume-related Filling” to replace peanut butter, you would.
But, but. It’s a bit more complex than it seems.
(T)he company said the classic Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup hasn’t changed and is still made with milk chocolate and freshly roasted peanut butter. The statement also acknowledged that as the brand has expanded into new shapes, sizes, and seasonal items, the company has made what it called “product recipe adjustments.”
Let me make an unpopular point: if you are expecting a full-on Reese’s experience from the permutations, you’re asking too much of life. Every alteration is a diminution. Am I saying that a Reese’s enrobed in white chocolate - sorry, cohesive albino binding fluid - is not a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup? I am saying exactly that. As long as the original is unchanged, I don’t care if they encrapify the heart-shaped one that bleeds sludge.
Now I have to check the ingredients on that coconut bar I liked. It could be shredded plywood in a sugar-syrup base. I almost hope it is. We all need more fiber in our diets.
Yes, I know the term isn’t “encrapification” but something else, but the use of the stronger term seems to be making the language worse, which would be - well, you know.
I love how the company says that the original hasn't changed but then....there have been "product recipe adjustments". I believe that sums up the definition of "encrapification", my new favorite word.
Once upon a time, the "race to the bottom" used to be a bad thing. Alas, I fear "compound coatings" isn't what will be found when they finally find the bottom of the "edible composite polymers" barrel.