Hershey Kissables were a chocolate candy sold by

The Hershey Company The Hershey Company, commonly known as Hershey's, is an American multinational company and one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in the world. It also manufactures baked products, such as cookies and cakes, and sells beverages like milksh ...

from 2005 to 2009. Comparable to M&M's, Hershey Kissables were shaped like miniature Hershey's Kisses and were coated in a thick sugar shell. The basic colors were red, orange, yellow, green and blue. Holiday versions were also made in pastels for Easter, pink and white for Valentines, and red and green for Christmas. In mid-2007 Hershey's introduced a dark chocolate version called Kissables Dark, which featured more subdued colors and a semi-sweet interior. Kissables were discontinued in July 2009.

Ingredient changes to reduce production costs

In 2007, the Hershey Company began to change the ingredients of some of its products to replace the relatively expensive

cocoa butter Cocoa butter, also called theobroma oil, is a pale-yellow, edible fat extracted from the cocoa bean. It is used to make chocolate, as well as some ointments, toiletries, and pharmaceuticals. Cocoa butter has a cocoa flavor and aroma. Its melti ...

with cheaper fats. Hershey's changed the description of the product from "candy coated milk chocolate" to "chocolate candy" and altered the packaging and product ingredients. According to United States

Food and Drug Administration The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is respon ...

food labeling The packaging and labeling of food is subject to regulation in most regions/jurisdictions, both to prevent false advertising and to promote food safety. Regulations by type Multi-faceted * Codex Alimentarius (international voluntary standard) ...

laws, these modified recipes could not be legally described as

milk chocolate Milk chocolate is a solid chocolate confectionery containing cocoa, sugar and milk. Chocolate was originally sold and consumed as a beverage in pre-Columbian times, and upon its introduction to Western Europe. Major milk chocolate producers incl ...

. The ingredients in 2005 were: milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, nonfat milk, milk fat,

lactose Lactose is a disaccharide sugar synthesized by galactose and glucose subunits and has the molecular formula C12H22O11. Lactose makes up around 2–8% of milk (by mass). The name comes from ' (gen. '), the Latin word for milk, plus the suffix '' - ...

soy lecithin Lecithin (, from the Greek ''lekithos'' "yolk") is a generic term to designate any group of yellow-brownish fatty substances occurring in animal and plant tissues which are amphiphilic – they attract both water and fatty substances (and so a ...

, PGPR, and artificial flavors), sugar, red 40, yellow 5,

yellow 6 Sunset yellow FCF (also known as orange yellow S, or C.I. 15985) is a petroleum-derived orange azo dye with a pH dependent maximum absorption at about 480 nm at pH 1 and 443 nm at pH 13 with a shoulder at 500 nm. When added to f ...

blue 1 Brilliant blue FCF (Blue 1) is a synthetic organic compound used primarily as a blue colorant for processed foods, medications, dietary supplements, and cosmetics. It is classified as a triarylmethane dye and is known under various names, such as ...

, and carnauba wax. In 2007, the ingredients were changed to: Sugar, vegetable oil (palm, shea, sunflower and/or safflower oil), chocolate, nonfat milk, whey, cocoa butter, milk fat, gum arabic, soy lecithin, artificial colors (red 40, yellow 5, blue 2, blue 1,

corn syrup Corn syrup is a food syrup which is made from the starch of corn (called maize in many countries) and contains varying amounts of sugars: glucose, maltose and higher oligosaccharides, depending on the grade. Corn syrup is used in foods to softe ...

resinous glaze Resinous glaze is an Alcohol (chemistry), alcohol-based solution of various types of food-grade shellac. The shellac is derived from the raw material sticklac, which is a resin scraped from the branches of trees left from when the small insect, ''Ke ...

, salt, carnauba wax, PGPR and vanillin.

References

The Hershey Company brands Food and drink introduced in 2005 Products and services discontinued in 2009 {{Confection-stub