Reese's

Reese's — the dairyman who built a rival out of his employer's chocolate.
 

Harry Burnett Reese moved his family to Hershey, Pennsylvania around 1917 to take a job milking cows on Milton Hershey's dairy farm. He had already tried a good many things by then — farming, a cannery, raising frogs to sell to restaurants — and none of them had worked. What he saw in Hershey was a town built entirely on confectionery, and by 1923 he had left the dairy to start making sweets himself.
 

The peanut butter cup arrived around 1928, sold for a penny apiece, and it was made using Hershey's own chocolate as the coating. His former employer was, in effect, supplying the raw material for a business that would one day outgrow most of what Hershey made itself. Reese also had sixteen children, and he was not above using them: a 1928 advertisement ran a photograph of the entire family under the caption "16 Good Reasons to Buy Reese's".
 

He died in 1956 and his six sons took over. In 1963 they sold the company to Hershey — not for cash, but for 666,316 shares of Hershey stock, valued then at around $23.5 million. It was the single best decision anyone in that family ever made. By 1969 the peanut butter cup was Hershey's best-selling product, and it has never given up the position since. The dairyman's shares are now worth several billion dollars.
 

Sweet and Glory stocks Reese's wholesale for UK retailers.
 

The Reese's Range
 

The cup is the centre of the range and comes in a spread of sizes from miniatures through standard to the larger Big Cup and King Size formats, plus white and dark chocolate versions. Around it sit the filled variants, which put something extra inside the peanut butter — caramel, marshmallow and similar — along with the bar range, Reese's Pieces, and a set of snack formats built on the same flavour pairing rather than the cup shape.
 

One thing worth knowing: the range spans UK, American and Canadian production, and they are not identical. Recipes, sizes and formats differ between markets, and some lines exist in one and not the others. Individual lines and seasonal editions rotate with each shipment, so it is worth checking the current range for what is in stock now.
 

Why Stock Reese's?
 

Reese's is the best-selling confectionery brand in the United States and the strongest single name in American chocolate imports here. It needs no explanation and no sampling — the pairing of chocolate and peanut butter is either something a customer already wants or it isn't, and the ones who want it tend to want it repeatedly.
 

The commercial strength is the size ladder. Miniatures work in pick and mix and party formats, standard cups are a counter impulse buy, King Size and Big Cup sell as a deliberate treat at a higher price point, and the multipack formats serve the household shop. That means one brand can hold several positions in a shop at several price points without any of them cannibalising the others. The bars and snack lines then extend the same flavour into fixtures where a cup would not sit naturally.
 

For the full history, the format breakdown and how the UK and American versions differ, read our complete guide to Reese's.
 

Frequently Asked Questions
 

Who was Reese's named after?
 

Harry Burnett Reese, a former dairy farm worker at Milton Hershey's operation in Pennsylvania. He left to start his own sweet company in 1923 and developed the peanut butter cup around 1928, coating it in chocolate bought from Hershey. His six sons sold the business to Hershey in 1963, taking payment in Hershey shares rather than cash — a decision that made the family extraordinarily wealthy as the cup became Hershey's biggest seller.
 

What is the difference between UK and American Reese's?
 

They are made to different recipes for different markets, and the formats differ too. Several lines available in the United States or Canada have never been distributed in the UK at all, and pack sizes vary between markets. Where both versions exist, product pages identify which is which.
 

What is a Reese's Big Cup?
 

A larger version of the standard cup with a higher ratio of peanut butter to chocolate. It has become the base for most of the brand's experimentation, since the extra depth allows something else to be layered inside — which is where the filled variants come from.
 

Where can I buy Reese's wholesale in the UK?
 

Sweet and Glory supplies Reese's wholesale across the UK with no minimum order, dispatched from our Manchester warehouse.
 

What is the minimum order for Reese's wholesale?
 

There is no minimum order. The first parcel is free on orders over £150 ex VAT, with additional boxes charged at £7.10 each. Pallet delivery is free over £650 ex VAT. Everything is dispatched from our Manchester warehouse.