The Poor Farm Boy Who Invented Reese’s to Provide for His Family

rhesus is named after its inventor harry burnett hb reese he first created his tasty cups in 1928 but before he ever came up with the idea of making candy he was forced to work through a long list of jobs to try and provide for his 16 kids yes you heard that right 16. harry's road to success was anything but straight and along the way he had numerous obstacles to overcome this is his story harry burnett reese was born in 1879 he was of welsh and english descent and he grew up on a farm in pennsylvania

harry was an only child and he wanted to try and help his parents out as best he could and when it came to earning money he knew how to get creative as a young boy he started out by farming the land but soon enough he began carving out more lucrative sources of income he started milking cows as this was a quicker way to earn cash and he even built a pond in which he raised frogs that he then sold to nearby restaurants what a savvy little kid after a childhood filled with numerous entrepreneurial stints harry

got married in 1900 at the time he was 21 years old and it didn't take long before their little family began expanding and expanding and expanding in total the couple had 16 kids together eight daughters and eight sons and soon enough harry was not surprisingly struggling to support his ever-growing family it helped that harry's wife was from a well-off family but harry had always been a true family man and not only did his mother live with him for the rest of her life but so did her two sisters as you can guess the house was

always packed and during a typical reese family supper at least 20 family members would be present and if friends and relatives were invited too then that number went up to more than 40 people however cozy this may have been this also meant more money was needed and in an attempt to provide for his massive family harry was forced to take on all manner of odd jobs from managing the fishing operations of his father-in-law's cannery business to overseeing a dairy farm and working a factory job there was nothing harry wouldn't do to support his growing family

but this still wasn't enough and the family kept struggling then in 1916 harry read an employment ad in the newspaper milton s hershey was seeking people to manage his many dairy farms in the hershey pennsylvania area as you can probably guess milton was none other than the founder of the famous hershey chocolate family and while harry did not yet know it at the time taking this job would change his life forever after working for hershey for a year henry was asked to manage a dairy farm called the round barn as it was an experimental farm

his boss milton hershey visited every two weeks to check how things were going the farm used new milking machines which were much more efficient than milking by hand but they were also expensive and by 1919 milton decided to close the whole thing down whether harry quit his job or got fired is not entirely certain but one thing we do know this time he decided to take a new approach and instead of relying on others for a job he took matters into his own hands by forming a new business he called it the r and r

candy company and he made milk chocolate covered almonds and raisins and then sold them to local stores henry knew he needed high quality manufacturing equipment to boost his company's potential one year later he changed the name to the superior chocolate and confectionary company and to raise money he began issuing stock surprisingly he managed to raise today's equivalent of 290 thousand dollars not bad but the business ultimately failed nonetheless and under pressure to support his many children and with yet another baby on the way a 40 year old harry felt hopeless after his early candy venture

failed henry took a paper mill job he then began a second job as a butcher and he also had a third job canning vegetables to say that he was busy would be an understatement in 1921 his well-off father-in-law had some great news though he had purchased a home for harry's growing family would things finally begin to look up once they managed to secure a roof over the family's head harry quit his three jobs and went back to working for hershey he started out in the shipping department and was soon promoted to foreman money was still

tight however and he decided to do an additional job on the sign while his earlier chocolate project had failed he wanted to give it another try and he began making a variety of confectionary products from his basement he made hard candy chocolate covered nuts and raisins and mints as well as two popular candy bars that he invented he always made sure to use fresh ingredients and he coated all of his creations with hershey's chocolate fast forward a couple of years and harry's enterprise was doing much better than expected sure he was still working from his

basement but his candies were popular and demand kept increasing due to this success harry began taking the business even more seriously and he set up the hb reese candy company for many years his enterprise was doing well but it still didn't have a blockbuster product and the profits were meager but then one day in 1928 everything changed five years after harry set up his company he went on a sales trip to harrisburg there he chatted with a store owner who told him that he struggled to keep chocolate-covered peanut butter candy in stock the store's owner's

supplier couldn't keep up with demand and the candy was flying off the shelves faster than he could restock it to continue fulfilling his customers desires the man asked harry if he could help perhaps he could make something similar harry didn't have to think twice and without hesitation he said yes he left the store and immediately purchased a massive 50-pound can of peanut butter he rushed home and began experimenting by covering a peanut butter ball in chocolate the creation was tasty but difficult to make and producing the balls on a large scale would have been nearly

impossible after some thinking harry came up with a better idea what if he would use traditional cups instead of balls by that time chocolate covered peanut butter cups had already been around for a while they were sold commercially as early as 1907 but for some reason they had never become very popular up until then they were just one of many candies sold at drug stores but this was all about to change to ensure that he made the best cups in town harry began making his own peanut butter and one thing that made his cup so

tasty was the distinct way he roasted the peanuts until they were almost burnt harry simply called his cups peanut butter cups or penny cups as they were sold for just one penny each they were an immediate hit and people loved the delicious salty yet sweet treats not much later harry was already selling five pound boxes to local retailers and by 1935 business was going so well that he paid off all his debts and quit his factory job at the hershey company emboldened by his success harry felt ready to set out on his own to make

a living creating candy and he was finally able to fully concentrate on his own business the company was running smoothly for many years but then world war ii happened and with it came a severe scarcity of supplies and economic hardship when the u.s entered the war sugar was rationed and although his former boss milton hershey led harry sugar it wasn't enough in a last-ditch attempt to save his business harry eliminated his other products and focused solely on the peanut butter cup it was his most popular product after all and in addition it was also the

candy that needed the least amount of sugar it would turn out to be the best decision he ever made as harry's business boomed other candy companies began producing their own cups too but despite the competition harry's cups kept growing rapidly in popularity and he continued to do well in fact things were going so well that he decided to build a huge factory in hershey the building was finished in 1957 but unfortunately harry didn't live to see it with his own eyes he died a few months earlier from a heart attack just a few days before

his 77th birthday harry's death plunged the company into chaos he had left his daughters out of the will and instead left the company to his six remaining sons and those sons didn't exactly get along well while harry's children were fighting for control the company finally entered the modern era with an automated production line by the late 1950s reeses had become a respected national brand sales soared to over 15 million dollars a year but the brothers continued fighting the eldest brothers wanted to sell the company but the younger ones wanted to keep it in the family

one day hershey heard the rumors about a possible resale and quickly reached out after all a merger made sense the companies were in the same town they used the same chocolate and their founders had been good friends so after seven long years of arguing and fighting harry's son sold the family business to hershey with the sale the suns received roughly a five percent share in the hershey company and they got 666 000 shares of hershey's stock which was valued at nearly 24 million dollars at the time that's more than 200 million dollars in today's equivalent

and when you keep in mind that hershey is worth more than 20 billion dollars today all you can do is hope that the suns pass their precious stock onto their own kids by 1969 reese's peanut butter cups were hershey's best-selling product they were selling more than 300 million cups a year and after launching that iconic hey you got peanut butter on my chocolate you got peanut butter in my chocolate ad campaign in the early 70s reese's cups were not just hershey's top product anymore but also the best selling candy in the whole us today reese's

peanut butter cups are still being enjoyed by millions of people every year the mouth-watering cups continued to prosper under hershey's and over the years dozens of variations have been created head into any supermarket anywhere in the u.s and you see tons of reese's products from big cups miniatures and minis to dark chocolate white chocolate marshmallow caramel and hazelnut cream flavors or what about reese's cookies reese's pieces or reese's puffs cereal but however big the rhesus brand may be reese's peanut butter cups remain number one and outside of the us plenty of people love them too

that's probably exactly how hb envisioned his company to be after all he once wisely said if you make a product that both young and old enjoy then your potential customers are limited only by the number of people on earth this was the story of harry brunette reese and his delicious peanut butter cups determined to provide for his big family the savvy entrepreneur would do whatever it took to make ends meet and by doing so he eventually created an impressive and mouth-watering legacy that has lasted to this day reese's peanut butter cups were handcrafted in harry's

basement nearly one century ago and although they are now sold all over the world the essence of the original cup has endured and something tells me harry would be proud did you know about the story behind these tasty cups and have you ever had one share it in the comments and let us know if you have a business in mind that you would like us to cover next i hope you enjoyed watching this video and don't forget to check out our channel for more inspiring business videos