Hershey’s closed the plant in Oakdale, Ca to move manufacturing to Mexico, putting almost 600 people out of work, crapping on the memory of what Milton Hershey stood for, supposedly due to lower costs. Sure helped keep those prices down.
Years ago, paleontologist and essayist Stephen Jay Gould wrote an article on this phenomenon, emphasizing the continuous shrinkage of the Hershey bar (which apparently was originally closer to those “ultra-huge” bars they sell in the candy aisle these days). He collected all the available price-to-size data on the Hershey bar, plotted it out on a graph, and extrapolated the trend into the future. He was then able to predict the exact time when the size of a Hershey bar would reach zero grams, and exactly how much it would cost.
Odd, I’m still paying less than 45 cents a bar at Kroger and Wal-Mart, and Hershey brands were recently on sale at both places for around 33 cents a bar/pack. I know places like Walgreens and gas stations gouge on candy, but I’m surprised you paid that much at a grocer’s. Perhaps you didn’t use a shopper loyalty card?
You think that’s bad? Hershey is apparently switching out ingredients in its milk chocolate in order to save money and in the process can’t even cal it “Milk Chocolate” anymore. Here is one example.
Here in Michigan, it’s about 50 Cents for a bar at a major store, but more like 70 cents at a convenience store.
I’ve seen them go under 50 cents plenty of times. I buy them for my students(I teach 7th Grade) and you can usually find them for around 35 cents if you buy enough.
I lived in China from 2003-2005, and I think they ran around $2 or so. Then again, it’s not a popular brand there at all.
They’re also in the process of shutting up their plant in Smiths Falls, Ontario (where I had my first job as a student engineer). As far as I can tell all of the production lines except Oh Henry and the peanut butter cups have already been closed, and those last two were probably being kept open for the Hallowe’en production; the whole plant will be closed by the end of this year.
The big $3 plus bars from Lindt, Guylian, et al are starting to look like a runaway bargain.
Honestly, why can’t a large US maker put out a one-person-size, real milk choccy bar for six bits? It’s not like it has to be gourmet quality or anything. They must be spending way way too much on marketing. Cut the marketing; keep the milk.
Stupid megacorps. Does one ever change course before they hit the iceberg?
Eighty cents seems awfully cheap to me, but I guess that’s because I gave up on megabrand chocolate about a decade ago. I simply can’t stomach the stuff; poor chocolate is worse than no chocolate at all. If I can find a quality bar for under $2 I consider that a bargain. Obviously YM does V.
I paid 75 cents for a regular-sized Special Dark bar this morning. Wal-Mart had the larger bars on sale for $1.25 apiece.
Here in Central PA, where Hershey is based, there is some tension between Hershey management and the workforce over the export of production jobs overseas. Since Hershey is a major employer, whatever they do has an effect on the regional economy as a whole. Hershey Foods stock also endows the Milton Hershey School, so there are a lot of reasons to be nervous right now.