Reese’s heir vs. chocolate skimpflation
Planet Money

Reese’s heir vs. chocolate skimpflation

Apr 4, 2026 · 33 min

About this episode

<a href="https://tix.to/pm-book-tour"target="_blank" >Live event info and tickets here.</a> <br/><br/>When ingredient costs skyrocket, companies have three basic options: They can raise their prices (a sort of product-specific inflation), shrink the size of the products (often called “shrinkflation”), or, sometimes, find more creative ways to reduce costs by degrading the quality of their products - which <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/10/26/1048892388/meet-skimpflation-a-reason-inflation-is-worse-than-the-government-says-it-is"target="_blank" >our very own Greg Rosalsky has dubbed</a> as  “skimpflation.” The latest alleged culprit? Hershey’s.<br/><br/>The Hershey Company is using ingredients in some of their Reese’s candies that — legally — they cannot call milk chocolate or peanut butter. This has infuriated Brad Reese, a grandson of H.B. Reese, the inventor of the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. <br/><br/>On today’s show, why chocolate makers might be skimping on chocolate and peanut butter, what else might explain these ingredients, and how Brad Reese has launched a skimp-shaming campaign to get Hershey’s to go back to using classic Reese’s ingredients.<br/><br/>And – EXCLUSIVE – you’ll hear Planet Money break some big news to third-generation peanut butter cup scion Brad Reese.<br/><br/><a href="https://www.planetmoneybook.com/"target="_blank" ><em>Pre-order the Planet Money book and get a free gift</em></a><em>. / </em><a href="https://n.pr/3HlREPz"target="_blank" ><em>Subscribe to Planet Money+</em></a><br/><br/><em>Listen free: </em><a href="http://n.pr/PM-digital"target="_blank" ><em>Apple Podcasts</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://n.pr/3gTkQlR"target="_blank" ><em>Spotify</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://n.pr/3Bkb17W"target="_blank" ><em>the NPR app</em></a><em> or anywhere you get podcasts.</em><br/><br/><a href="https://n.pr/3h92GwS"target="_blank" ><em>Facebook</em></a><em> / </em><a href="https://n.pr/3FqLuws"target="_blank" ><em>Instagram</em></a><em> / </em><a href="https://n.pr/3sGZdrq"target="_blank" ><em>TikTok</em></a><em> / Our weekly </em><a href="https://n.pr/3zrFvUB"target="_blank" ><em>Newsletter</em></a><em>.</em><br/><br/><em>This episode was hosted by Greg Rosalsky and Sarah Gonzalez. It was produced by James Sneed. It was edited by Kenny Malone, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.</em><br/><br/>See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.<br/><br/><a href="https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy">NPR Privacy Policy</a>