The Hershey Company, often called just Hershey or Hershey's, is an American multinational confectionery company headquartered in Hershey, Pennsylvania, United States, which is also home to Hersheypark and Hershey's Chocolate World. The Hershey Company is one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in the world; it also manufactures baked products, such as cookies and cakes, and sells beverages like milkshakes, as well as other products. The Hershey Company was founded by Milton S. Hershey in 1894 as the Hershey Chocolate Company, originally established as a subsidiary of his Lancaster Caramel Company. The Hershey Trust Company owns a minority stake but retains a majority of the voting power within the company.
Nestlé S.A. is a Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland. It has been the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other metrics, since 2014. It ranked No. 64 on the Fortune Global 500 in 2017. In 2023, the company was ranked 50th in the Forbes Global 2000.
Mars, Incorporated is an American multinational manufacturer of confectionery, pet food, and other food products and a provider of animal care services, with US$45 billion in annual sales in 2022; that year Forbes ranked the company as the fourth-largest privately held company in the United States. Headquartered in McLean, Virginia, the company is entirely owned by the Mars family. Mars operates in four business segments around the world: Mars Wrigley Confectionery, Petcare, Food, and MARS Edge, the company's life sciences division.
Milk chocolate is a form of solid chocolate containing cocoa, sugar and milk. It is the most consumed type of chocolate, and is used in a wide diversity of bars, tablets and other confectionery products. Milk chocolate contains smaller amounts of cocoa solids than dark chocolates do, and contains milk solids. While its taste has been key to its popularity, milk chocolate was historically promoted as a healthy food, particularly for children.
Kit Kat is a chocolate-covered wafer bar confection created by Rowntree's of York, United Kingdom. It is produced globally by Nestlé, except in the United States, where it is made under licence by the H. B. Reese Candy Company, a division of the Hershey Company.
White Knight is a brand of chocolate-coated, chewy, mint-flavoured confectionery bar sold in Australia. Originally produced by Hoadley's Chocolates it was later manufactured by Nestlé Australia. The packaging is blue and white and features a picture of a knight on a horse. Its slogan is 'Mighty Mint Chew'. The product was discontinued in 2016.
Butterfinger is a candy bar manufactured by the Ferrara Candy Company, a subsidiary of Ferrero, Nestlé. It consists of a layered crisp peanut butter core covered in a "chocolatey" coating. It was invented by Otto Schnering of the Curtiss Candy Company in 1923. A popularity contest chose the name.
White chocolate is a confectionery typically made of sugar, milk, and cocoa butter, but no cocoa solids. It is pale ivory in color, and lacks many of the compounds found in milk, dark, and other chocolates. It is solid at room temperature because the melting point of cocoa butter, the only white cocoa bean component, is 35 °C (95 °F).
Chocolate-covered raisins are a candy consisting of individual raisins coated in a shell of milk, dark or white chocolate.
Callebaut is a Belgian coverture chocolate manufacturer owned by the Barry Callebaut group and based in Belgium. It was founded in 1911 by Octaaf Callebaut in Belgium. Coverture chocolate contains high amounts of cocoa butter and is often used by gourmet and culinary professionals. Many professionals who use Callebaut coverture chocolate use it for its workability and consistent taste.
Nestlé UK Ltd., trading as Rowntree's, is a British confectionery brand and a former business based in York, England. Rowntree developed the Kit Kat, Aero, Fruit Pastilles, Smarties brands, and the Rolo and Quality Street brands when it merged with Mackintosh's in 1969 to form Rowntree Mackintosh Confectionery. Rowntree's also launched After Eight thin mint chocolates in 1962. The Yorkie and Lion bars were introduced in 1976. Rowntree's also pioneered the festive selection box which in the UK have been a staple gift at Christmas for over a century.
Lion is a brand of chocolate bar currently owned and manufactured by Nestlé. The brand was originally introduced by British company Rowntree's in 1976. It consists of a filled wafer with caramel and cereals covered in milk chocolate.
Chocolate is a food product made from roasted and ground cocoa pods mixed with fat and powdered sugar to produce a solid confectionery. There are several types of chocolate, classified primarily according to the proportion of cocoa and fat content used in a particular formulation.
Barry Callebaut AG is a Swiss-Belgian cocoa processor and chocolate manufacturer, with an average annual production of 2.3 million tonnes of cocoa & chocolate . It was created in 1996 through the merging of the French company Cacao Barry and the Belgian chocolate producer Callebaut. It is currently based in Zürich, Switzerland, and operates in over 30 countries worldwide. It was created in its present form by Klaus Johann Jacobs.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to chocolate:
Crunch is a chocolate bar made of milk chocolate and crisped rice. It is produced globally by Nestlé with the exception of the United States, where it is produced under license by the Ferrara Candy Company, a subsidiary of Ferrero.
Mondelez International, Inc., styled as Mondelēz International, is an American multinational confectionery, food, holding, beverage and snack food company based in Chicago. Mondelez has an annual revenue of about $26.5 billion and operates in approximately 160 countries. It ranked No. 108 in the 2021 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.
The World Cocoa Foundation is a non-profit membership organization with more than 90 member companies striving to make the cocoa supply chain more sustainable. WCF and its members are criticized for doing too little to end child labor, deforestation and extreme poverty, with their efforts dismissed as “greenwashing” and “a remarkable failure”. WCF's membership includes chocolate manufacturers such as Mondelez International, Nestlé, The Hershey Company and Mars, Inc. cocoa producers and suppliers such as Barry Callebaut and Cargill, shipping companies and ports and retailers such as Starbucks.
John Chuang Tiong Choon is a Singaporean business magnate best known as the co-founder of chocolate confectionery organisation Petra Foods, which is allegedly one of the world's biggest cocoa-producing firms. He now serves as the company's Group chief executive officer.
Ruby chocolate is a style or distinct variety of chocolate that is pink or purple in colour. Barry Callebaut, a Belgian–Swiss cocoa company, introduced it as a distinct product on 5 September 2017 after beginning development of their product in 2004. It has a pink color, and Barry Callebaut says it is a fourth natural type of chocolate. Some other industry experts have said that some cacao pods are naturally pink or purple in colour, and thus pink chocolate has been available before.
