The largest chocolate manufacturer in North America, Hershey Foods Corporation, recently opened a museum in Hershey , Pennsylvania .

This museum is a monument to Milton S. Hershey, who founded the company in 1894. The museum combines relics of the past, like a model of the machine used to wrap Hershey’s Kisses, along with high tech gadgets.

Hershey had several false starts in the candy making business before hitting on a winner in 1899 when he developed the Hershey process which produced a milk chocolate bar. In 1907 Hershey introduced the small flat-bottomed conical-shaped chocolate pieces he named Hershey’s Kisses. In the 1920’s Hershey added more chocolate products like the Mr. Goodbar, Hershey’s Syrup, chocolate chips and in 1938 the Krackel bar.

In 1963 Hershey acquired the Reese’s company that was founded by a past employee. That added the Reese’s peanut butter cup to his line of chocolates. Then in 1977 Hershey acquired Y & S Candies founded in 1845, and now the maker of Twizzlers licorice candies. Some of the newest products in the Hershey stable are Reeses Pieces Peanut Butter Candy , Good and Plenty and Kissables which is a smaller version of the original Hershey’s Kisses.

Several of the Hershey’s brand candies are available from candymachines.com for personal home use or in larger quantities for vending machine route owners.