Willy Wonka 101: The lab that created Hershey's Kisses Deluxe
HERSHEY, Pa. — Jim St. John is a chemical engineer with know-how in uranium extraction. Lori Cullins is a chemist versed in oil research. And Jeb Simpson started out as an architecture major.
Now they stand wearing white lab coats and hair nets in the middle of a laboratory brimming with vials, molds, and heat guns, inventing something that will revolutionize the world.
The world of chocolate, that is. They've designed a new Hershey's Kiss.
Chocolate Innovation Lab 239, where Simpson and his fellow chocolatiers ply their confectionery tradecraft, is embedded deep inside Hershey's research factory. Seldom seen by outsiders, it looks like a cross between a household kitchen — replete with tubes of vanilla, butter and sugar everywhere — and an industrial test site that reeks of cocoa beans.
"It's science and it's math, but it's applied to something that we love," Cullins says. "It's all about chocolate."
The Kiss Deluxe is one of the more dramatic changes that Americans have seen this holiday season in chocolate, a $98.6 billion-a-year business worldwide. The deluxe model clocks in at about twice the size of the standard Kisses brand, has a hazelnut center and and is an attempt by Hershey to bring a more premium feel to its holiday chocolate offerings.
It comes as competitors, such as Nestlé's, have also offered up big marketing changes. Nestlé announced in October that, for the first time, it will begin selling its vaunted Cailler chocolate beyond Switzerland, as the company attempts to make headway into the super-premium chocolate market.
The Hershey Kiss hasn't had a spinoff in 25 years, since Hershey introduced Kisses with almonds. Such decisions don't get taken lightly at a company whose corporate blood flows in chocolate flavors.
Simpson and his team started the research for Kiss Deluxe eight years ago and marketed a slightly different version in China in 2013.
"From the onset, the Kiss Deluxe was a lot of firsts for the company," Simpson says. "We knew we wanted to develop a product that was globally relevant. This product was intentionally developed to be sold around the world. A lot of work had to go into understanding those taste preferences. ... Not every country has the same tastes. For instance, Brazilians like things very, very sweet, whereas the Chinese tend to like things much less sweet. Those things have to be taken into consideration."
Strangely enough, the U.S. version includes rice, while the Chinese version does not.
"We begin by using gluten-free delicate rice crisps that are (infused) into the chocolate," Simpson, Hershey's manager of chocolate product development, says. "In China, we used wheat crisps. In the states, where gluten is more of a concern, we use rice."
While chocolate may be universally adored, traditions involving the sweet treat vary around the world.
"In China, gifting of chocolate is a bigger deal than it is in the states," says St. John, Hershey's research chief and Master Chocolatier. "You show up at someone's house, you bring a gift."
The reaction to the Kiss Deluxe in China was positive enough, boosting the company's revenue in that country to $100 million in annual sales — a fraction of the U.S., but impressive nonetheless, according to St. John. Hershey's had been trying to come up with a premium gifting idea in the U.S. and had been toying with some kind of a signature truffle piece.
"As the middle class grows in China, the consumption of chocolate grows as well," Simpson says.
Simpson visited China and saw that the Kiss Deluxe had gained traction in the market. Sold in a golden wrapping, rather than the traditional Kiss' signature silver, the Kiss Deluxe seemed to be a good fit for holiday gift-giving, he said.
Hershey decided Kisses, the most sold chocolate item in the U.S., would get the nod as the premium holiday chocolate item they would rest their hopes on. But designing the new kiss would prove to be tricky, Simpson and St. John said.
Consumer groups told Hershey they wanted something special in a deluxe kiss, and Hershey decided that specialty item would be a roasted hazelnut.
"So a lot of work went into looking at hazelnuts, the size of hazelnuts," Simpson said. "If they were too small in size, they would be overwhelmed by the taste of the chocolate. If they were too large, the hazelnut would protrude out the bottom of the Kiss."
The iconic Kiss familiar to Americans differs from the Kiss Deluxe. For a regular Kiss, once the chocolate is made to Hershey's specifications, it is deposited on a conveyor belt, and is then formed from the bottom up. For Kiss Deluxe, a mold is used, and the chocolate is poured from the tip to the bottom, meaning it is essentially a reverse-order Kiss.
Then a cold-stamping technology is used to inject a frozen tool into the mold and squeeze the liquid chocolate up against the walls of the interior of the mold. That creates a shell that actually "shocks the chocolate," Simpson says, giving a uniform thickness to every shell.
The Kiss Deluxe then travels down the manufacturing line, where it is finally deposited with roasted hazelnuts and the rice crisps — the latter giving a subtle crunch to the chocolate.
"It's the audio, the sound of the crisps," St. John says. "You're tasting with the ears. People say you taste with your eyes, but in this case, it's all about what you're hearing. It's all part of the art of the process."