What are Hershey’s kisses doing in Britain, where Cadbury is the King? I know this question may be towering in many of the eager minds who are reluctant to part with the halcyon taste of their childhood.   But I think words like “cheap, sweet, low in cocoa solids” may work in favor of Hershey’s if they wish to proceed with it.

I know many of my choco “phrenic” Brit friends have turned restless on hearing that the silver foil-wrapped Hershey’s kisses are going to hit the shelves of Asda. The Hershey’s has worked out an authentic international distribution deal with Walmart/Asda in order to expand its business empire beyond the American continent.  This means the Reese's Pieces and Hugs, as well as the famous silver foil-wrapped Kisses can be purchased at any regular Walmart store.

These silver wrapped chocolate bombs are ruled with their distinctive character.  Paul Richardson in his famous book- The History of Chocolates describes the taste (of Hershey’s kisses) as "a piquant background flavor of something faintly sour, cheesy, or overripe, what chocolate experts call a 'barnyard' taste."  After plunging their hands into the cracking bagful of Hershey’s imported from America my choco “phrenic” Brit friends claimed that the chocolates have nothing impressive to boast about. They are like any regular chocolate balls which borrows flavor from regurgitated milk.  While referring to some web material dedicated to the topic I found that Hershey’s kisses came into limelight in 1907, but they were trademarked 17 years later. Lucy Glennon in her blog Hidden Hazards of Eating claims that she had a very horrifying experience with Hershey’s kisses, where she drew blood on the end of nose after she bit it the wrong way.  Although food experts like Richardson argue that tastes of confectionaries may vary from country to country depending on the prevalent conditions of the land like religion or anything else, but in real I don’t agree with it.  I have many of my techie friends who returned from States complaining that the Cadburys that were sold in the departmental stores across US were not the same as the ones that they ate in Britain.

I have read it somewhere that Hershey’s products are comparatively less sweet than some of the other popular European chocolate brands. This is because of its exceptional production methods devised by the founder Milton Hershey. Till now Hershey’s could only answer to online queries from UK, when some chocolate frenzy eaters visited the Hershey’s website placed online orders for their favorite chocolates.  But Walmart people are confident that Brits will embrace Hershey’s in near future.  Doug McMillion, who heads Walmart’s International business, expressed "we believe people will buy [Hershey's Kisses] without a lot of marketing support, if we demo them and let people taste them".

Image courtesy: scrapetv.com