Whoppers are malted milk balls with an artificial flavored "chocolatey coating" produced by The Hershey Company. The candy is a round ball about 3⁄4 inch (20 mm).
History
In 1939, the Overland Candy Company introduced the predecessor to Whoppers, a malted milk candy called "Giants". In 1947, Overland merged with Chicago Biscuit Company, Leaf Gum, and Laf Machinery. Two years later, Leaf Brands reintroduced malted milk balls under the name of "Whoppers". All products manufactured by Leaf Brands were purchased by W. R. Grace in the 1960s; however, they were repurchased by Leaf in 1976. Finally, Hershey Foods Corporation acquired the Leaf North America confectionery operations from Huhtamäki Oyj of Espoo, Finland, in 1996. The company has been producing the Whoppers candy to this day.[1]
Whoppers were first sold unwrapped, two pieces for one cent. But after the creation of cellophane wrapping machines, smaller Whoppers were packaged and sold five for one cent, also known as Fivesomes. Leaf soon introduced the first confectionery milk carton package which would become a hallmark of the candy.[1]
There are seasonal variants for Christmas and Easter - Sno-Balls and Mini Robin Eggs. Both are covered with a hard candy shell.[2][3][4]
In 2000, Hershey introduced Mini Whoppers. Traditionally chocolate in flavor, a new strawberry milkshake flavored variant[5] became available in 2006. Soon after, they also released Reese's Peanut Butter Cups flavored Whoppers (discontinued sometime between 2014 and 2015). For Easter 2009, three new milkshake flavors were released, which were vanilla,[6] blueberry, and orange cream. The vanilla ones were reintroduced in 2016 as a seasonal product.[citation needed]
