There are a lot of different chocolate bars in an American candy aisle, but in the face of all that choice, people are mostly retreating to the names they know. Americans consume quite a lot of chocolate, in all its forms, downing an average of 2.8 billion pounds yearly, according to a report from Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute. That’s about 10 or more pounds per person each year. While that isn’t quite on the level of the chocolate-loving Swiss, who eat more than double that, it’s still enough cocoa to generate more than $23 billion in sales. And while you could grab a fancier bar of Lindt or Ghirardelli, after over 130 years, most people in the U.S. are still picking Hershey’s when they want a chocolate treat.
According to a report by Statista, when asked whether they eat a variety of brands of chocolate bars, Hershey’s topped the list, with 57% of Americans saying they consume it. This was narrowly in front of the 56% of people who said they eat Reese’s. In fact, the top three brands of chocolate bars in the U.S. are all Hershey-owned names, as the company bought Reese’s in 1963, and also makes the number three choice, Kit-Kat, which is consumed by 50% of Americans. The only chocolate bar that comes even close to Hershey’s dominance in the market is Snickers, which is eaten by 48% of people and owned by rival Mars Inc. When it comes to just pure chocolate bars, Hershey’s is even more dominant.
Hershey’s is the top chocolate bar in the United States
If you are being a purest and excluding candy bars with all kinds of flavors and fillings, the next most popular chocolate bar in the U.S. is Dove Chocolate. The brand famous for its smooth taste is eaten by 35% of people in America, more than 20% less than Hershey’s. Compared to the legacy of Hershey’s, Dove is a much younger brand, only having been founded in Chicago in the 1950s, and is now owned by Mars as well. In fact, while Hershey’s dominates the top of America’s chocolate consumption, Mars brands fill out much of the rest of the top 10. Beyond Snickers at number four, Mars owns Twix, the number five brand eaten by 43% of Americans, and the number nine and 10 bars, 3 Musketeers and Almond Joy, respectively.
The last two top U.S. chocolate bars are owned by two separate giants from outside our borders. Butterfinger is owned by Italian confectioner Ferrero Group of Ferrero Rocher fame, and then there is the other pure chocolate bar on the list, Ghirardelli. While it was originally an American-owned brand founded in San Francisco in 1852, more than 40 years before Hershey’s, Ghirardelli is now owned by Lindt & Sprüngli, a Swiss company. But none of those challengers can compare to the brand power of Hershey’s, a name that has been synonymous with American chocolate for over a century, and which still holds the crown today.
