The
Heath bar is an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
candy barA chocolate bar is a confection in bar form comprising some or all of the following components: cocoa solids, cocoa butter, sugar, milk. The relative presence or absence of these components form the subclasses of dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and white chocolate. In addition to these main...
made of
toffeeToffee is a confection made by caramelizing sugar or molasses along with butter, and occasionally flour. The mixture is heated until its temperature reaches the hard crack stage of 300 to 310 °F...
, marketed by L.S. Heath beginning in 1928, subsequently by
Leaf, Inc.Leaf International BV is a market leader in candy, chewing gum and pastilles in Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland and Belgium and has a number two position in Norway, Denmark, Belgium and Italy. In total Leaf products are sold in more than 50 countries worldwide...
, and since 1996 by
HersheyThe Hershey Company, known until April 2005 as the Hershey Foods Corporation and commonly called Hershey's, is the largest chocolate manufacturer in North America. Its headquarters are in Hershey, Pennsylvania, which is also home to Hershey's Chocolate World. It was founded by Milton S...
.
Shaped as a thin hard slab with a milk chocolate coating, the toffee originally contained
sugarSugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...
,
butterButter is a dairy product made by churning fresh or fermented cream or milk. It is generally used as a spread and a condiment, as well as in cooking applications, such as baking, sauce making, and pan frying...
, and almonds, and was a small squarish bar weighing 1 ounce.
The Heath bar ranked 56th nationally in the US and 110th on the US East Coast in a 1987 popularity survey, and have become a popular add-in ingredient to ice cream, cookies and other confections.
History
In 1913, L.S. Heath, a school teacher, bought an existing
confectioneryConfectionery is the set of food items that are rich in sugar, any one or type of which is called a confection. Modern usage may include substances rich in artificial sweeteners as well...
shop in
Robinson, IllinoisRobinson is a city in Crawford County, Illinois, United States. The population was 6,822 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Crawford County.-Geography:Robinson is located at ....
as a likely business opportunity for his oldest sons, Bayard Heath and Everett Heath. The brothers opened a combination candy store, ice cream parlor, and manufacturing operation there in 1914.
With the success of the business, the elder Heath became interested in
ice creamIce cream is a frozen dessert usually made from dairy products, such as milk and cream, and often combined with fruits or other ingredients and flavours. Most varieties contain sugar, although some are made with other sweeteners...
, and opened a small dairy factory in 1915. His sons worked on expanding their confectionery business. At some point they reportedly acquired a toffee recipe, via a traveling salesman, from a Greek confectioner in another part of the state. In 1928, they began marketing it locally as "Heath English Toffee", proclaiming it "America’s Finest".
In 1931, when Bayard and Everett were persuaded by their father to sell the confectionery and work at his dairy, they brought their candy-making equipment with them, and established a retail business there. The Heaths came up with the interesting marketing idea of including their toffee on the order form taken around by the Heath dairy trucks, so that one could order Heath bars to be delivered along with one’s milk and cottage cheese.
Early ads promoted Heath as a virtual health bar – only the best milk chocolate and almonds, creamery butter, and “pure sugar cane.” The motto at the bottom of one ad read “Heath for better health!” It was surrounded by illustrations of milk, cream, butter, cheese, and ice cream, and off in a special corner – a Heath bar and a bottle of soda. The latter was probably
PepsiPepsi is a carbonated soft drink that is produced and manufactured by PepsiCo...
, as the Heath Co. bottled the drink for a number of years.
The Heath bar started to grow in popularity nationally during the
DepressionThe Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, despite its one-ounce size and the five-cent price, equal to larger bars. Made by hand until 1942, the candy was produced on a major commercial scale for good after the U.S. Army placed its first order of $175,000 worth of the bars. The Heath bar had been found to have a very long shelf life, and the Army included it in soldiers’ rations throughout
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Popularity of the Heath bar grew after the war, although the manufacturing process remained largely a hands-on, family-run operation. All four of L.S. Heath’s sons, his two daughters, and several grandchildren were involved in the business. In the 1950s, the Heath Toffee Ice Cream Bar was developed, and eventually franchised to other dairies.
In the 1960s, the huge national success of the Heath bar led to family in-fighting of some heat, with at least one grandchild, Richard J. Heath, expelled from the business (1969), subsequently publishing a book in 1995,
Bittersweet: The Story of the Heath Candy Co..
In the 1970s, the company bought the South Dakota company "Fenn Brothers", which had produced a clone of Heath toffee –
Butter BrickleButter Brickle was the registered trademark of a toffee ice cream flavoring and of a toffee-centered chocolate-covered candy bar similar to the Heath bar.-History:...
.
In 1989, with the diminishing and splintering of the Heath family, the business was sold to a Finnish company,
Leaf, Inc.Leaf International BV is a market leader in candy, chewing gum and pastilles in Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland and Belgium and has a number two position in Norway, Denmark, Belgium and Italy. In total Leaf products are sold in more than 50 countries worldwide...
, which in turn was acquired by
HersheyThe Hershey Company, known until April 2005 as the Hershey Foods Corporation and commonly called Hershey's, is the largest chocolate manufacturer in North America. Its headquarters are in Hershey, Pennsylvania, which is also home to Hershey's Chocolate World. It was founded by Milton S...
in 1996. Hershey had initially created the
SkorSkor is a candy bar produced by The Hershey Company. It was first marketed in US in 1981 and later launched in Canada in 1983 under the name of "Rutnam". It was originally intended as competition for the Heath bar produced by the Heath Company and, later, the Leaf Candy Company...
bar to compete with the Heath bar, before it bought out Leaf, Inc.
Since acquiring the product, Hershey elongated the bar to align with its competition, and now weighs 1.4 ounces. Current ingredients are milk chocolate, sugar, palm oil, dairy butter (milk), almonds, salt, artificial flavor, and soy lecithin. The wrapper's vintage brown color scheme has a small seal proclaiming Heath the "Finest Quality English Toffee."
Heath bars in other products
Following the 1973 incorporation by
Steve's Ice CreamSteve's Ice Cream was an ice-cream parlor chain which attracted media attention and long lines when owner Steve Herrell opened his first establishment at 191 Elm Street in Somerville, Massachusetts in 1973. It introduced the concept of super-premium ice cream and customized ice cream desserts using...
of the candy bar in as an ice-cream "mix-in," Heath bars became a significant ingredient in ice cream and other confections.
Historically, variations of the bar have — according to Ray Broekel, in his 1982 book
The Great American Candy Bar Book — included Heath Milk Chocolate with Peanuts, Heath Milk Chocolate Toffee Crunch, Heath Milk Chocolate with Natural Cereal and Raisins, and the double Heath bar. In the 1980s, a Heath Toffee Ice Cream Sandwich appeared, along with Heath Soft ‘n Crunchy — a soft serve ice cream.
Currently, other varieties of Heath bar-based confections include
Archway CookiesArchway Cookies was an American cookie manufacturer, founded in 1936 in Battle Creek, Michigan. Since December 2008, it has been a subsidiary of Lance Inc., a snack-food company...
Heath Cookie,
Heath Bar Klondike barsKlondike is a brand name for a dessert generally consisting of a vanilla ice cream square coated with a thin layer of chocolate-flavored coating. The first recorded advertisement for the Klondike was on February 5, 1922 in the Youngstown Vindicator. They are generally wrapped with a silver-colored...
,
Baskin-RobbinsBaskin-Robbins is a global chain of ice cream parlors founded by Burt Baskin and Irvine Robbins in 1953, from the merging of their respective ice cream parlors, in Glendale, California. It claims to be the world's largest ice cream franchise, with more than 5,800 locations, 2,800 of which are...
Heath Bar ShakeThe Heath Bar Shake is a drink sold at Baskin-Robbins. It is notable for its high calorie count and was dubbed "The Unhealthiest Drink in America" by Men's Health Magazine. The shake contains 2,310 calories....
and the
Dairy QueenDairy Queen, often abbreviated DQ, is a chain of soft serve and fast food restaurants owned by International Dairy Queen, Inc, who also owns Orange Julius and Karmelkorn. The name "Dairy Queen" is taken from the name of their soft serve product, which the company refers to as "Dairy Queen" or...
Heath Bar Blizzard Treat — as well as
Heath Bar flavored varieties of ice cream with a coffee or vanilla ice-cream base, such as Ben and Jerry's
Heath Bar Crunch.
Though the candy bar's manufacturer, L.S. Heath, and subsequently Hershey, have supported the incorporation of the candy bar in other confections by marketing a pre-shredded variety, many vendors hand crumble the candy bars, finding the pre-crumbled variety "too small and too dusty."
External links