Des Moines, Iowa TV station KCCI did a story on a man who opened up his Hershey’s Bar to find living worms writhing around inside.
CNN profiles a young family living in a Chicago suburb who have decided to carry out an experiment in frugal living—they want to see if they can reduce their expenses enough to get by on about half of what they made before the wife and sole breadwinner was laid off earlier this summer.
Do you know your imported Cadbury bars from your Hershey’s? Lots of chocolate lovers do and, according to the Wall Street Journal, many are bound and determined to seek out imports from the U.K.
In case you were planning on getting your recommended daily allowance of calcium from Hershey’s Syrup + Calcium, you may want to think twice. As reader Samuel has pointed out, the label on the fortified corn syrup says it contains “0%” of your suggested daily calcium. On the bright side, it probably doesn’t taste like chalk.
The food companies say we are on the brink of a sugar shortage that will wreak havoc on your candy bars and all that. According to the WSJ several large food companies including Kraft Foods Inc., General Mills Inc., Hershey Co. and Mars Inc. sent a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack warning that the US could run out of sugar if we don’t get rid of some tariffs.
Fork over your personal information and the Mars chocolate company will snail mail you a free coupon for one full-sized Mars candy bar in 6 weeks. We mentioned this in Morning Deals in May, it’s still going on, and will continue on Fridays through September. They’re calling it the “Real Chocolate Relief Act,” a tie-in to two different news stories: 1) Economic bailout plans and 2) Some corner-cutting candymakers not using 100% cocoa butter and putting more oil inside – a basterdization known as “mocklate.”
Hershey is closing its online store (www.hersheygifts.com) at the end of the month, saying they can’t keep it running in this economy. If you like their “chocolate” products, everything on the site is on sale for 25% off. [LA Times] (Thanks to Robert!)
Highlights From Buxr
Highlights From Dealnews
Highlights From Dealhack
Last month we posted about Kevin Johnson, a 29-year-old self-employed businessman with excellent credit and an established history with American Express, who had his credit limit cut by 65% because AMEX said he was shopping at the wrong sorts of stores. Johnson has created a website called NewCreditRules.com to try to uncover what, exactly, he did wrong to fall under AMEX’s high risk category.
As if a big chocolate doodie drizzled in caramelized cheez-wiz wasn’t gross enough, Marc was dismayed to find his Reese’s brownie covered in strange webbing. Dismay turned to horror as he ascertained the white strings and brown pellets were related to the meal worms crawling their way through his sweet treat. When he took the brownie back to the deli, they opened the rest of the batch. It was a veritable meal worm polka party. The horror unfolds in photographic form, inside…
Highlights From Dealnews
Since we wrote about Hershey’s reformulating some of their products into “mockolate” that can’t legally be called “milk chocolate,” the story has been getting some play in the media, prompting Hershey to respond to the controversy. So, why did they reformulate their candy? Because you like fake chocolate better!
Well, we’ve been saying it would be more honest to just raise prices instead of shrinking the product, and Hershey has taken us up on that. On Friday, only months after a 13% hike back in February, Hershey announced a price increase of 10-11% across the product line, citing higher costs for ingredients.
The Candy Blog noticed that Hershey’s “Kissables” have been reformulated, and can no longer be legally labeled “milk chocolate” because of FDA regulations. The new package looks the same, except for the ingredients and the label which now says “Chocolate Candy” instead “Candy Coated Milk Chocolate.”
Reader Aaron says that his trip to Six Flags was ruined by their new policy of making riders check even very small bags before each ride — at the cost of $1 a ride.
Reader Leo writes in with some helpful information that will allow you to avoid stale candy:
I work at a small-volume store in the midwest, and the other day my supervisor asked us to check all of the candy in the checkout lanes to see if it had expired. M&M Mars and Hershey brand candy both had different, indecipherable codes on the back which tell the expiration date. After calling the 1-800 number and finding out what the codes meant, we discovered that most of our candy stock was expired by a year or more. We even found candy that went bad from 2004. I figured I should share the codes, so people won’t buy expired candy, because it’s out there.
