Have you ever wondered what it took to create that simple little Hershey kiss or the melting Hershey bar that smothers your marshmallow and graham cracker for the perfect
s'more? It took FAILURE. Oh, and then some more FAILURE. It took a man that realized that failure is our best teacher.
Raised in rural central Pennsylvania, hampered by the lack of a formal education and nearly bankrupt by the time he was 30, Milton S. Hershey went on to become not only one of America’s wealthiest individuals, but also a successful entrepreneur whose products are known the world over, a visionary builder of the town which bears his name and a philanthropist whose open-hearted generosity continues to touch the lives of thousands.
A successful entrepreneur...eventually. Following a four-year apprenticeship as a teenager to a Lancaster, Pennsylvania, candy maker, Hershey in 1876 attempted to start his own candy business in Philadelphia. Despite six years of hard work, it failed. So he moved to Denver and found work with a confectioner who taught him how to make caramels using fresh milk. He then started up a second candy business in New York City. It also failed. Undaunted, he returned to Lancaster and once again tried making a go of the caramel business. This time, it worked. Soon, his Lancaster Caramel Company was shipping all over the U.S. and Europe, employing 1400 people and turning him into one of the area’s leading citizens.
But........what about the chocolate?
For years, he worked at perfecting a viable recipe for making milk chocolate -- a process which up to then had been kept a closely guarded secret by the Swiss. Finally, through trial and error, he hit upon the right formula of milk, sugar and cocoa that enabled him to realize his dream of mass producing and distributing milk chocolate candy. What had once been a luxury for the rich, was to become an enjoyment that anyone could afford...the Hershey bar.
