Hershey: The Real Life Willy Wonka

Hershey one of the world's largest chocolate makers she shares hitting an all-time high today where is that coming from people everywhere that I meet tell me stories about Connections that they've had with our products and how important Our Brands have been in their life [Music] Hershey is one of the biggest chocolate companies in the world worth nearly 47 billion dollars and yet the Hershey company was founded by a boy who struggled through poverty and went bankrupt multiple times this is the true rags to riches story of a chocolate Empire this is the insane and inspiring

story of Milton Hershey [Music] Milton Hershey's early life was difficult to say the least he was born in 1857 in a rural Dairy farming Community called Dairy Township in Pennsylvania whilst Milton's parents both came from respectable families Milton's father Henry had a bad habit of falling for shady get rich quick schemes you see Henry had always been determined to succeed in business but he would rarely stick to any of the projects he started he tried and failed 17 different businesses before moving the family to Oil City Pennsylvania and they only moved there because he was

trying to get rich on a recent oil boom but they arrived when it was already too late to make any money Milton was just four years old at the time and his father's poor financial decisions meant the Hershey family had almost completely run out of money in fact young Milton was extremely skinny and on the brink of starvation not just that but Milton's mother was pregnant and so they were soon going to have another mouth to feed but then one day Milton's came to visit and they saw how miserable the family had become they hated

seeing them this way and generously offered Milton and his parents to live on a farm that they owned they gratefully accepted and not long after settling into their new home Milton's mother gave birth to a daughter named Serena so you'd think at this point Milton's dad would Embrace his steady new job working on the farm and work extra hard to support his family but no Henry got distracted by another get rich quick scheme he would abandon the family for several months at a time and what the plan was that he'd send money back home he

never ended up providing much money to help them survive thus nilton's mum was struggling to keep Little Milton and Serena fed and healthy without help from her husband and then one brutal winter while Henry was away Serena became sick at first it was assumed maybe she just had a cold but as a red rash began to spread across her body it soon became clear she had scarlet fever she passed away at just four years old this tragic incident of losing their daughter was the final straw in the relationship of Milton's parents meanwhile young Milton's chaotic

home life was rubbing off in his school life too he was struggling badly and whilst he had learned to read and write before he even got to the fifth grade he was forced to drop out of school so he could work instead when Milton was 13 years old he got his first apprenticeship with a newspaper in fact Milton's dad actually signed him up for a five-year contract with the paper as he believed this would be a great career for his son there was just one problem Melton hated the job Not only was the owner extremely

bad tempered but the job wasn't something Milton was interested in at all the newspaper had been his father's dream not his and yet he'd been signed up for five years of this so one day whilst at work Melton deliberately dropped his hat into a printing machine so that it would break he was fired immediately which meant he got out of the contract just like he'd helped unsurprisingly his father was very disappointed Milton had lost the apprenticeship but his mother on the other hand knew how much Milton hated working for the newspaper and was glad he

now had the chance to pursue a career he actually enjoyed so at 14 years old Milton began an apprenticeship with a candy maker called Royers he here he learned about buying ingredients from suppliers and how to make candies himself in 1876 Milton completed his apprenticeship and by that point was convinced he'd found where his real passion was his vision was now clear he wanted to open his own candy shop of course the apprenticeship had already given him a lot of first-hand experience of the business and so after a little persuading he managed to convince his

mother's family to loan him the money to set up a small candy shop of his own in Philadelphia Milton began working around the clock to produce candies as well as dried fruits and ice cream sometimes he wouldn't even go home to rest and just fell asleep under the store counter but luckily for Milton he'd seemingly open this new candy shop at the perfect time because Philadelphia became the host of the country's first World's Fair called the Centennial Exposition people traveled from all over the world for this event and Milton massively benefited from all the tourists

who were looking to buy some sweets thanks to the event he was able to turn a profit one particularly creative tactic Milton used to bring in new customers was that he installed an airshoot in the shop which helped carry the sweet smell of the candy from the Shop's kitchen to the outside air enticing passes by to come inside the shop and buy something there was one big problem though Milton was doing pretty much all of the work on his own he couldn't afford to buy large equipment or hire employees to help make more candy so

no matter how hard he worked he couldn't produce large enough volumes of candy to stay profitable plus the price of sugar and some of his other ingredients were increasing and of course once the World's Fair had ended less customers were passing by the store pretty soon Milton was falling behind on his bills and he was in constant fear that his suppliers were cut off his line of credit then one day in 1881 Milton's father Henry showed up and offered to help his son run the business despite knowing that his father had a terrible track record

in business Milton gladly accepted since he needed all the help he could get working so much had been making Milton ill and he knew support was necessary and the good news was that his father came prepared with lots of ideas that he felt could help grow Milton's candy business the bad news was that his father's ideas were all expensive for example producing cough drop candies and spending lots of money on a large window display unfortunately certainly Milton put too much trust in his father's Big Ideas and he spread himself too thin financially the business was

soon in desperate need of more money and fast so Milton reached out to his uncle a man named Abraham Snavely to ask for another loan to pay off his debts his uncle did agree to send him some money but in the end it wasn't enough to keep the business afloat after six years of running his candy shop in Philadelphia Milton Hershey was forced to declare bankruptcy the dream was dead after failing with his first business in Philadelphia Milton Hershey moved to New York City to try again as he thought part of the problem with his

first Venture had been the location but instead of opening a new store right away Milton decided to work for another business first to learn what was popular in New York he trained in a candy store called hoilers and this is where he learned about a caramel recipe that incorporated Fresh Cream into the mixture and this would later make a huge impact in his career after a couple of years of working for hoylers and getting experience and saving money Milton Hershey decided he was ready to open his own candy shop in New York City and Milton

began working seven days a week at his new shop in Midtown Manhattan this time Milton's mother was the one to help with the business she would diligently work on whatever he needed help with around the shop however Milton was still holding on to his father's false idea but cough drop candies would sell the best in reality sales weren't that great plus there was even more competition in New York and so just like his first shop Milton's second candy shop also went out of business Milton was forced to move back home after failing for a second

time and to make matters even worse when he returned home he received a letter in the mail that he was being sued for ten thousand dollars for the money he borrowed to buy candy making equipment in New York Milton Hershey was just 28 years old but he was already turning gray the stress of his two bankruptcies seemingly made him look much older than he actually was once again Milton swallowed his pride and walked five miles to the family farm to ask his uncles for another loan this time though they turned him down they said he'd

grown up to be too much like his father and they refused to waste any more of their money on him this really hurt Melton but mostly because he knew they were right he felt guilty for letting his family down but he would later reflect that wanting to prove to his family that he could be successful was one of the biggest motivations for him to keep going so even though he had failed with two different candy stores Milton Hershey did not give up on his dreams after moving back to his home of Lancaster Pennsylvania Milton realized

this was actually the perfect place to expand a caramel business especially since Lancaster was one of the largest Dairy Producers in the country the only trouble was finding the money to get started by this point his credit was ruined and he could no longer rely on loans from his family the one thing Milton did have though was some supplies left over from his failed business in New York so using those remaining ingredients and the fresh milk that was readily available in Lancaster Milton created a recipe for a new product melt in your mouth caramels which

proved to be extremely popular with the locals Milton started small this time though he made candy from home and then got a push cart to travel around the street to Lancaster selling his caramels of course making these products by hand and selling them all by himself was not a very sustainable or scalable business he really needed more funding so he could buy new equipment but understandably the banks were very reluctant to loan him any money however in 1886 Milton's family once again came through for him this time it was his aunt Matty while she couldn't

afford to give Milton the money herself when she saw Milton's new caramels genuinely seemed to be a popular product she agreed to cosine on a 700 loan from the bank and put down her own house as collateral even with this the bank was still hesitant to loan Milton the money and so they wrote in the agreement that the loan needed to be paid back within just 90 days Milton knew how serious the stakes were this time if he failed to repay the bank loan in 90 days his beloved Aunt Matty the only one who still

seemed to believe in Milton would lose her home so Milton didn't waste a second once he got the 700 loan from the bank he used that money to buy new candy making equipment and founded the Lancaster caramel company and luckily all of those years of trial and error with the previous Ventures had not gone to waste Milton learned from his past mistakes in the big cities there were dozens of candy shops to choose from but in Lancaster there was absolutely no competition Milton also realized he could make more money by selling caramels in bulk rather

than individual Penny candies like he'd done in his two previous businesses and this was possible since his mother and aunts both worked for free wrapping caramels for him and thus Milton's third business got off to a good start and things looked promising but 90 days is not a long time and Milton grew increasingly anxious as each day passed by knowing that he would soon need to pay back the 700 loan to the bank as the deadline grew closer Milton was extremely stressed knowing he was on the brink of bankruptcy yet again but just as all

hope looked lost for repaying the loan on time something miraculous happened a rich businessman from England just so happened to be visiting the area and once he tasted Hershey's caramels he liked them so much that he decided to import them back to the UK he made a massive order of caramels to be sold in shops throughout England this one order alone was enough to save her she and he was able to pay off his bank loan with literally just a couple of days to spare and that big order was just the beginning as word of

his products spread across Europe Melton began getting more and more International orders so much so that he was able to expand his business firstly by hiring employees and then by opening new stores in other areas and that's because Milton had created a product that not only had a unique Great Taste but also had a long shelf life unlike many other candies of the time which perished quickly as a result lots of shops wanting to buy his caramels which he marketed under the brand name Crystal a motivated by this success Milton continued to work relentlessly hard

and repeatedly reinvested company profits into more expansion over the next few years Milton managed to grow the Lancaster caramel company into a team of hundreds of employees Milton even opened multiple factories in Pennsylvania and Illinois and so at 36 years old Milton Hershey could put those years of failure behind him he had finally made it and was a truly successful businessman but this is not the story of just a successful businessman this is the story of an Empire and that's because of one event in 1893 that changed Milton's life forever but before we see how

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it out risk-free for yourself [Music] Milton Hershey was now a wealthy man and the Lancaster caramel company was very successful but now that Milton had been able to hire such a large team he finally had more time on his hands and Milton never stopped looking for that next big thing in 1893 Milton attended the world's Colombian Exposition in Chicago and here he met chocolate makers from a German firm called JM Neiman's they brought their chocolate making equipment to the exposition and put it on display now at the time chocolate was a luxury that was just

for the wealthy and that's because it normally had to be handmade and was typically imported from Switzerland as a result most people had never tasted chocolate before in their life but Milton realized that if he purchased this new German chocolate making equipment he could make chocolate more accessible to the average person and he believed that once people tasted chocolate it would become the most popular candy in the world needless to say he bought the chocolate making equipment in 1894 Milton established the Hershey Chocolate Company but Milton believed in chocolate so much that in 1900 he

sold his main business the Lancaster caramel company for one million dollars with modern inflation that's closer to 35 million but at the time his family thought he was crazy to give up such a successful business in order to take a risk on chocolate but Melton told them caramels are only a fad chocolate is a permanent thing Hershey had already seen in Europe that sales of chocolate had been cutting into the market share of his caramels and so he could tell that a pivot was needed and you have to give Milton credit here because when you

have something that's working well like with Hershey's caramel business it's easy just to try and maintain what you have rather than think about what comes next just look at how many Market leaders have failed to innovate and Fallen as a result but Milton could clearly see the chocolate business was going to be far bigger than caramels and so he went all in on it however Milton Hershey's success was not just from the fact he was early to get into the chocolate business but instead because he was the first in America to perfect the mass production

of milk chocolates you see Milton had hired a whole team to help them figure out how they could make milk chocolate that wouldn't turn rancid after a few days it took a lot of trial and error but eventually a man Milton hired named John schmalback found a way to warm and condense the milk without burning it creating delicious milk chocolate that could be stored for months without going bad Hershey rewarded him with a hundred dollar bill for his Discovery a nice fee at the time but a tiny price to pay given the discovery was essentially

the foundation of the company's entire success this ability to produce milk chocolate that could be stored for a long time meant they could Mass produce it in very large quantities and significantly lower costs thus they could sell their chocolate for just five cents meaning chocolate was no longer a luxury exclusive for the rich another reason they were able to produce it so cheaply was Milton's decision to sell a small selection of products whereas other chocolatiers trying to offer a wide variety Hershey focused on just the most popular ones meaning they could reduce them in high

quantities which both reduced operational complexity and let them benefit from economies of scale where the cost of each chocolate bar becomes cheaper as they were producing so many of them in bulk aside from their classic milk chocolate bar which they began creating in 1900 one of their most popular products was launched in 7. a foil wrapped candy called The Sweetheart which was soon renamed Hershey's kisses and continues to be popular to this day here she's also has another classic product Mr Goodbar and fun fact the name for that is simply because someone told Milton that's

a good bar and he misheard them and thought they'd said Mr Goodbar but then the name just stuck however despite the success of Milton's chocolate business Milton continued to work almost all hours of the day every day he was constantly trying to come up with ideas to grow the business this story's Milton even paid janitors at schools not to pick up Hershey's rappers off the ground so people would see the brand name more however Hershey's sneakiest tactic of all was that he taught some of his most loyal employees to essentially go undercover and get jobs

at competitor firms such as the chocolate manufacturers in Europe so they can learn their competitors methods and Trade Secrets by 1910 Hershey sales taught two million dollars and continued to grow rapidly from there and so Milton's decision to sell his caramel's business and go all in on chocolate had clearly been validated sadly his beloved Aunt Mitty who'd supported him and co-signed his bank loan died of pneumonia right before his chocolate business began and so she didn't get to see it Milton did manage to escape some tragedy himself though as in 1911 Milton had bought tickets

for the Titanic and was due to set sail on April 10 1912. however due to a last-minute business matter that cropped up here she decided to cancel the trip at the last minute of course we all know how the Titanic ended up so it was a lucky Escape for Milton but there's another decision of Milton's that's even more interesting which is the fact that he decided to create his own town when Milton Hershey first started his chocolate business he'd bought a huge property for his new Chocolate Factory in his hometown of Derry Township he also

chose to build a house within walking distance of the factory so that it was quick to commute to work but right from the very beginning Milton Hershey wanted to make sure that he created a good working environment for his employees too he said what I want to do more than anything else is to give my employees an opportunity to advance themselves in this world and to give them a helping hand and since Dairy Township was so remote Melton had the idea of creating a whole town nearby for his workers where he would build houses schools

parks and public transport it would be the ideal town for his employees to live and be as comfortable as possible as he felt if his workers were happy his company would Thrive now pretty much everyone told Milton it was a crazy idea to build a town but soon enough he'd bought the land paid for roads to be paved a Town Square to be built and affordable housing was set up with modern amenities like indoor plumbing and central heating thus his vision of building a town-faced workers had become a reality and still to this day there

is the town of Hershey in Pennsylvania thanks the Milton Hershey soon after the factory workers began settling in the town of Hershey employees were writing to their friends and family about how great this brand new town was this within itself was free advertising since the company in town were both called Hershey over the next few years Melton also decided to build an open-air theater Zoo golf course and concert hall for employees and guests to have fun Milton also came up with the idea to start printing out postcards of the town and including them with the

purchase of every chocolate bar so people would see images of what the town looked like which made them even more Curious to visit this town that revolved around chocolate quickly became a tourist destination but the town's biggest attraction is Hershey Park which is now one of the largest regional amusement parks in America even though it was initially just constructed as a place for Milton's employees to spend time with their families however whilst the town in business was a success during World War One a problem arose for Milton there was a ration of sugar and so

the cost of supplies began to Skyrocket so in 1916 Milton Hershey decided to build his own sugar refinery and he established another town of Hershey but this time they Cuba where sugar was in large Supply by 1918 construction of the Sugar Mill was complete and his new employees got to work just like in the first Hershey town in the US he built houses schools and health clinics for his workers and on top of building a new town Hershey built a railroad that ran through all the major ports of Cuba here she was able to cut

costs and increase production and in fact during World War II he was commissioned by the US military to create Hershey's ration debar for the troops as well as Hershey's tropical chocolates which was chocolate that wouldn't melt as time went on Hershey's continued to grow larger each year through a series of Acquisitions and license deals Hershey's began selling other major candy brands like Reese's M M's kitkats Rolos Cadbury's and Twizzlers for years the Hershey Chocolate Company continued to grow and was selling chocolates all around the world but when the Great Depression hit Milton Hershey wanted to

do something to ensure that the children of his employees could grow up to find jobs he knew that education was key to having a good life and he wanted to give the families of his Factory workers every opportunity to succeed and thus Milton promised that all of the children of his Factory workers receive a private education through high school he also founded the Hershey junior college and gave every child two years of free tuition not just that but since Milton and his wife were unable to have children of their own they set up the Hershey

industrial school which was initially designed to give free education to poor orphans and give them opportunities they wouldn't have otherwise had thus allowing them to find jobs once they came of age nowadays the school is simply named the Milton Hershey School and is no longer an orphanage but instead a private boarding school for children from underprivileged families as well as free education it gives kids in need access to medical help clothing well-cooked meals and much more it's genuinely life-changing for them and it began because Milton himself knew firsthand what it was like growing up in

poverty and he didn't want others to go through that too he wanted to give these kids who start out in life with very difficult circumstances the best chance to build a great life for themselves not only did Milton plow a lot of money into this school during his lifetime he set it up in his will so that a large portion of proceeds from both Hershey's chocolate business and money from the amusement park and other Hershey projects would funnel back to the middle and Hershey score so that the kids were always taken care of as a

priority one thing I found particularly impressive about this is that Milton didn't allow the use of the school in any Hershey's advertising because these days many businesses have charitable efforts but it's clear they're doing it so it makes their brand look good they'll often spend more money advertising their charity work than actually giving to charity and of course that's better than nothing but my point is Melton genuinely seemed to do this for altruistic reasons not business it seems like he recognized he was fortunate to have a couple of family members like his mother and aunts

who really looked out for him and he wanted to make sure other poor kids had someone looking out for them too now as for Milton he remained a workaholic all his life and he didn't retire as chairman of the Hershey board until age 87 and then he passed away of pneumonia just a year later in 1945 but he transferred the majority of his assets to the Milton Hershey School including a large percentage of Hershey stock thus making the school one of the wealthiest private schools in the world he did this to ensure that all of

his Charities would continue to exist long after his death and that his fortune would be used to help those in need now of course I'm not saying Milton Hershey was perfect nobody is for example there are stories of him having a bad temper and often being difficult to work with but overall it does seem like Milton did a lot of good in the world and genuinely made an extremely positive difference in a lot of people's lives as for the Hershey Company after more than 125 years in business the company is currently valued around 47 billion

dollars and remains one of the world's largest chocolate manufacturers over 3 million people visit Hershey Park every year and Hershey's town in Pennsylvania is still going strong however if you've seen many of my videos before you'll know that quite often after the original founder of a company is gone things sometimes get a bit more controversial and unfortunately her she's hasn't been free of its share of controversy for example several chocolate companies including Hershey's were named in a lawsuit concerning child labor happening in plantations on the Ivory Coast while these chocolate companies don't own these Farms

they're still profiting off all the free labor of children now to be fair since then Hershey's say they've created a child labor monitoring and remediation system to try and prevent these brutal working conditions but if you've seen my video on Nestle you'll know the chocolate industry has known about some of the horrific practices in their supply chains for many years and arguably haven't done as much to fix things as you would expect but now I want to give you a choice what do you want to see next if you click the thumbnail on the left

you'll see more about the chocolate industry's controversies or if you click the thumbnail on the right you'll see an inspiring Underdog success story so light or dark take your pick now and whichever video you choose I'll see you there in a second cheers foreign