Reeses Trees still look like something a dog leaves under a tree. The company is embracing it.
Every year, the holidays go through a familiar rhythm. The lights go up, the greeting cards go out. The gifts get wrapped, the cookies are made, the candy is purchased and stuffed in the stockings. And if that candy is Reese’s, then a familiar observation comes up every year.
They are supposed to look like Christmas trees. Instead they look like … well, you can see for yourself.
Okay, there’s no polite way to put this, but the Reese’s Christmas trees look like poop. There is little here that resembles a tree, but there is much that resembles the seasonally on-point Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo, from “South Park.” More generous souls have described them in less scatological terms.
The thing is, people have been saying the Reese’s trees look like poop for years now! The company has been making them since 1993, and there are tweets dating back to 2011 that note the resemblance. There was even a flurry of coverage in 2015, when news outlets including CNN, Fox News and the Huffington Post wrote about how much the candy looks like poop. So, at this point, the trees’ unfortunate shape has even become part of their marketing.
Other mass-market chocolate brands can make a tree look like a tree. Snickers trees have sharp, defined edges. Twix can even make a Santa Claus, a far more complicated shape, that doesn’t look like a blob. That’s because Reese’s aren’t molded.
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“It’s a extruded product,” meaning the shape is a little more free-form, said Anna Lingeris, a Hershey’s spokeswoman. Even if people giggle at the shape, “The ratio of chocolate to peanut butter is much higher than the traditional cup,” so they’re still very popular.
Share this articleShareThe company has responded to people who point out the resemblance on Twitter:
You’re just looking at it wrong! Happy holidays, America: Reese’s is gaslighting us.
“Consumers say it tastes good,” said Lingeris. “That’s what matters the most.”
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