Whoppers

Whoppers are malted milk balls covered with a chocolate-flavored coating produced by The Hershey Company. The candy is a small, round ball about 3/4 of an inch in diameter. They are typically sold either in a small cardboard candy box, in a larger box that resembles a cardboard milk carton, the “Fun Size” variety which is a tube-shaped plastic package sealed at the sides, containing twelve Whoppers weighing 21 grams (0.75 oz), or the even smaller variety of a tube containing three Whoppers weighing 6.8 grams (0.23 oz). {| class="toc" id="toc"

Contents

 * 1 History
 * 2 Ingredients
 * 3 Flavors
 * 4 Gallery
 * 5 Similar products
 * 6 External links
 * }

History
In 1939, the Overland Candy Company introduced the predecessor to Whoppers, a malted milk candy called Giants. Overland merged with Chicago Biscuit Company, Leaf Gum, and Leaf Machinery, in 1947. 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 Huhtamaki Oy of Helsinki, Finland in 1996. The company produces the Whoppers candy to this day.

Whoppers were first sold unwrapped, two 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. Sometime between 1949 and 1952 an egg-shaped Whoppers candy was introduced for Easter. They differ from the traditional Whoppers in being egg shaped and having a speckled candy shell.

In 2000, Hershey introduced Mini Whoppers. Traditionally chocolate in flavor, a new strawberry milkshake flavored variant became available in 2006, soon after they also released Reese's Peanut Butter Cup flavored Whoppers.

Ingredients
Listed in decreasing order by weight: sugar, whey (milk), partially hydrogenated palm kernel oil, corn syrup solids, corn syrup, malted milk (barley malt, wheat flour, milk, salt, sodium bicarbonate), cocoa, resinous glaze, sorbitan tristearate, soy lecithin, natural and artificial flavor, calcium carbonate, tapioca dextrin, and salt

Flavors

 * Original (chocolate)
 * Strawberry milkshake
 * Reese's peanut butter
 * Vanilla milkshake
 * Orange milkshake
 * Blueberry

Gallery

 * Individual pieces
 * Inside a Whopper
 * Milk carton style box

Similar products

 * "Maltesers", manufactured by Mars, Inc. in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Australia (exported to Hong Kong), Japan, and Austria.
 * "Mighty Malts", malted milk balls manufactured by Necco.