Beech Tree News Network

In September 1987, Hershey Chocolate Company unveiled the BarNone chocolate bar, the first new bar it had created in decades.  Hershey spent $15 million on testing and development before introducing BarNone on a national scale.  A national newspaper, tv, and radio ad campaign followed.  Their slogan was “The chocolate lovers bar.  It will tame the chocolate beasty in you”. 

With cocoa wafer, chocolate crème, peanuts and milk chocolate coating, the bar was manufactured in the company’s plant in Stuarts Draft, Virginia.  Hershey’s director of new development stated Bar None would become a consumer favorite. 

The fortune of the bar went from good to bad to worse pretty swiftly.  After five years of bliss, in 1992, Hershey inexplicably decided to change the bar by adding caramel into the mix and split the bar into two smaller bars.  By 1997(my senior year of high school), the thrill and magic of the original BarNone bar was gone and the product was discontinued. 

Fans didn’t forget the bar and, by 2006, web pages, Facebook posts and blogs were flooded with “best candy ever” and “bring these back” pleas.  Iconic Candy, LLC, a company that specializes in the return of nostalgic candy brands was listening. After years of research and development, Iconic Candy is slated to return the original BarNone this spring. Iconic used hundreds of fans who had contacted them as a select pool of lucky taste testers to insure they would return the BarNone as it originally was. Iconic Candy, LLC’s website reminds us, “Like a great song from our past, an iconic candy brings back memories like a portal in time. It takes us back to another time and place when everything seemed better, brighter and gentler.” Iconic Candies are so much more than delectable delights they are memories in every bite.  (www.iconiccandy.com)

Before anyone gets too excited about the impending return of this bar, I looked for more recent information about a potential return of this candy.  I was disappointed to find nothing recent.  Oh well, I’ll always have my memories.