By DEE-ANN DURBIN (AP Business Writer)
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are getting the vegan remedy.
The Hershey Co. mentioned Tuesday that Reese’s Plant Based Peanut Butter Cups, which go on sale this month, will likely be its first vegan sweets offered nationally. A second plant-based providing, Hershey’s Plant Based Extra Creamy with Almonds and Sea Salt, will observe in April.
The sweets are made with oats as a substitute of milk, Hershey mentioned.
Hershey has experimented with vegan chocolate earlier than. It offered an oat-based chocolate bar known as Oat Made in some take a look at markets beginning in 2021. But the brand new merchandise would be the first offered all through the U.S. beneath the “Plant Based” label.
Hershey mentioned customers need alternative and are in search of merchandise they think about more healthy or with fewer substances, together with decreased sugar and plant-based choices. Hershey additionally launched an natural model of Reese’s Cups in February 2021.
Younger customers, specifically, want to cut back consumption of animal-based merchandise, says Euromonitor, a market analysis agency. In a 2021 survey, Euromonitor discovered that 54% of Generation Z customers have been proscribing animal-based merchandise from their diets, in comparison with 34% of Baby Boomers.
Nestle has offered its KitKat V, a vegan KitKat bar, in Europe since 2021, whereas Cadbury sells a vegan chocolate bar within the United Kingdom. But thus far, U.S. vegan chocolate choices have typically been restricted to premium manufacturers, like Lindt, or natural chocolatiers like Hu Kitchen.
Hershey mentioned it developed plant-based variations of Reese’s Cups and Hershey bars — a few of its hottest merchandise — as a result of there’s a dearth of mainstream plant-based sweets within the U.S. market.
The plant-based variations will value extra. Hershey wouldn’t share particulars as a result of it mentioned retailers set last costs. But Rite Aid lists a 1.4-ounce package deal of two plant-based Reese’s Cups at $2.49; that’s about $1 greater than customers would pay for a daily package deal. Hershey expenses an analogous premium for natural variations of its Reese Cups, which went on sale in 2021.
And ditching the dairy gained’t lower energy. While Hershey didn’t launch the entire dietary information, the 1.4-ounce package deal of plant-based Reese’s Cups have 210 energy; that’s the identical variety of energy as a 1.5-ounce package deal of conventional Reese’s Cups.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”