
Oh Henry! was
an American candy bar
A candy bar is a type of portable candy that is in the shape of a bar. The most common type of candy bar is the chocolate bar, including both bars made of solid chocolate and combination candy bars, which are candy bars that combine chocolate wi ...
containing
peanut
The peanut (''Arachis hypogaea''), also known as the groundnut, goober (US), goober pea, pindar (US) or monkey nut (UK), is a legume crop grown mainly for its edible seeds. It is widely grown in the tropics and subtropics by small and large ...
s,
caramel
Caramel ( or ) is a range of food ingredients made by heating sugars to high temperatures. It is used as a flavoring in puddings and desserts, as a filling in bonbons or candy bars, as a topping for ice cream and custard, and as a colorant ...
, and
fudge
''Fudge'' is a generic role-playing game system for use in freeform role-playing games. The name "''FUDGE''" was once an acronym for ''Freeform Universal Donated'' (later, ''Do-it-yourself'') ''Gaming Engine'' and, though the acronym has since b ...
coated in chocolate,
sold in the U.S. until 2019.
A slightly different version of it is still manufactured and sold in
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
. The original version is still sold in the U.S. by
Hershey, under the name
Rally
Rally or rallye may refer to:
Gatherings
* Political demonstration, a political rally, a political demonstration of support or protest, march, or parade
* Pep rally, an event held at a North American school or college sporting event
Sport ...
.
History
There are multiple versions of the Oh Henry! bar origin story. The manufacturer
Nestlé
Nestlé S.A. ( ) is a Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland. It has been the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other metrics, since 20 ...
says that the bar was introduced by George Williamson and his Williamson Candy Company of
Chicago
Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
in 1920 in the United States.
The most popular alternate story, aside from the Canadian origin claimed by chocolatier Wilson McCutchan, is that Thomas Henry, manager of the Peerless Candy Co. in Arkansas City, Kansas, invented a bar he called the "Tom Henry Bar" in the late 1910s, and sold the recipe to George Williamson in 1920. There is no credible documentation of this story.
There are other alternate accounts of the origin of the name of the bar. One theory is that of a boy named Henry who frequented George Williamson's second candy shop. He became a favorite of the young girls who worked there, who would say "Oh Henry!" when speaking to or about him, and Williamson used this phrase to name his new confection. The other story is that the name is based on the pen name of William Sydney Porter,
O. Henry. Williamson was thought by some to have been a fan of O. Henry stories, and an O. Henry story about peanuts might have been read by Williamson.
The Williamson Company was sold to Warner-Lambert in 1965, which soon sold Oh Henry! to Terson, Inc.
Nestlé
Nestlé S.A. ( ) is a Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland. It has been the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other metrics, since 20 ...
acquired the U.S. rights to the brand from Terson in 1984.
In 2018, Nestlé sold the rights to its U.S. confectionery products to
Ferrero SpA
Ferrero International SpA ( , ), more commonly known as Ferrero Group or simply Ferrero, is an Italian multinational company with headquarters in Alba. Ferrero is a manufacturer of branded chocolate and confectionery products, and the second ...
. Ferrero still produces an Oh Henry! branded bar in small production runs.
Differences between Ferrara and Hershey versions
In
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
, the bar is currently sold by
the Hershey Company
The Hershey Company, often called just Hershey or Hershey's, is an American multinational corporation, multinational confectionery company headquartered in Hershey, Pennsylvania, which is also home to Hersheypark and Hershey's Chocolate World. T ...
and was manufactured at their
Smiths Falls, Ontario
Smiths Falls is a town in Eastern Ontario, Canada, southwest of Ottawa. As of the 2021 Canadian census, 2021 census it has a population of 9,254. It is in the Census division for Lanark County, but is administratively separated from the county. ...
facilities prior to their closure. The bars are different in appearance: the Canadian version is one bar with the fudge in the centre, the fudge surrounded with a thin layer of caramel, and the nuts surrounding that layer before it is surrounded in the coating. Hershey sells Oh Henry! bars made in Canada on a very limited basis in the United States as
Rally
Rally or rallye may refer to:
Gatherings
* Political demonstration, a political rally, a political demonstration of support or protest, march, or parade
* Pep rally, an event held at a North American school or college sporting event
Sport ...
bars, using the trademark of a Hershey product introduced in the 1970s and later discontinued.
Advertising
Television commercials showed the protagonist desperately searching for the Oh Henry! bar and finding it at the end, only to run into further trouble after eating it (i.e. while standing upon an unstable ladder, at a convenience store without cash).
See also
*
List of chocolate bar brands
References
External links
Oh Henry! from Nestlé USA
{{Hershey
Chocolate bars
The Hershey Company brands
Products introduced in 1920
Peanut confectionery