Lovely Little Shelf

The Book: The Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars, by Joel Glenn Brenner

The Story: Well, the story is this: Charlie & The Chocolate Factory is not too far from the truth.  Corporate spies, crazy inventions, chocolate makers who were not allowed to eat chocolate as children… all true. Totally wild.

This book starts out talking about the history of chocolate and how it made it to America and how Hershey and Mars got in the game early.  So much here that I had no idea about.  Turns out that milk and chocolate don’t naturally mix.  The milk chars or the chocolate burns or a number of other things.  Milk chocolate took forever to invent and the milk in Hershey’s chocolate bars is what gives them their distinct flavor.

The rest of the book goes into these two companies and their founders and subsequent owners.  I loved hearing about Forrest Mars Sr. and how he would come into the factory, see smudges of chocolate on people’s uniforms and fire them.  If he saw dust on the chocolate bins, someone was getting fired.  He sounded totally crazy and I can just picture him.  Hershey, on the other hand, started an orphanage and pretty much tried to build a utopian town for his employees.

There is a huge section on marketing their products and how Hershey didn’t advertise at all until the 70’s, and only then because a salesman that Mars ran off came to work for Hershey’s and was floored at the lack of organization and the disregard for advertisements.  The book says that this man may have saved Hershey’s from ultimately going under or being bought out by Mars.  Interesting.

What I Thought:  First things first: this book was researched to the max.  Both of these companies are traditionally very secretive and hard to get information on.  The author researched for 10 years to get this full story and it shows.

I love learning about things I didn’t know I didn’t know, and this was exactly that. I think my husband probably got tired of hearing me spout off chocolate facts, but I just couldn’t get over it.  Amazing stuff. It’s just funny to me that we love chocolate and just know nothing about it. And it had never even crossed my mind that I knew nothing about it.

The writing is engaging, and kept me going- although I do have to admit that I got bored with learning about the science part of chocolate and I found myself skimming these parts after awhile. There are a lot of archive pictures from Hershey’s, Mars and other candy companies that I thought were really interesting.  Also the cover is beautiful and made me want to eat chocolate.

The only downside? This book is 10 years old.  The latest info is from 1998 & early 1999.  I kept wondering what else had happened between now and then, but I have no idea if there is a more current edition or another book on this.

Conclusion: I would recommend this for people who like to learn about business strategy and marketing.  There is just so much here.  Also, lovers of trivia and arcane facts.  Good stuff.  However, if you are unable to eat chocolate or are interested in dieting, this may be a bad book for you.  I craved chocolate from page one until the very end.