Hershey’s Bar
It's from 1900, before you were born.
- Maker
- The Hershey Company
- Type
- Milk chocolate bar
- Debuted
- 1900
- Note
- America's classic chocolate bar
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About
As of 2026, it's 126 years old.
The Hershey's bar is America's default chocolate — the one with the slightly tangy flavor that the rest of the world finds baffling and Americans find deeply nostalgic. Milton Hershey cracked affordable mass-market milk chocolate in 1900 and promptly built an entire town around it, streetlights shaped like Kisses and all.
Scored into those snap-apart rectangles, it became the unofficial building material of the s'more and a permanent resident of the checkout lane.
It is not the fanciest chocolate you'll ever eat — but it's the one most likely to trigger a campfire memory, which is arguably a superpower no luxury truffle has.
Hershey’s Bar through the years
First sold
Milton Hershey makes affordable milk chocolate a mass-market treat.
Hershey's Kisses debut
The foil-wrapped drops join the lineup.
Nutritional and wartime legacy
Hershey's bars long served as field rations for US troops.
