The Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars

Forrest Mars and Milton Hershey built business empires out of chocolate. In this long-awaited history of the candy business over eight years in the making former Washington Post reporter Jol Glenn Brenner tells a unique story that is like chocolate itself a rich blend of many compelling ingredients--in this case biography and cultural history investigative reporting and literary journalism. Along the way Brenner takes us inside a world as mysterious as Willy Wonkas Chocolate Factory where industrial spies jockey for inside information as paranoid executives fight an all-out war for Americas sweet tooth. Forrest Mars often called "the Howard Hughes of candy " was one of the most successful (and private) entrepreneurs in America a brilliant autocrat who built a unique $20-billion-a-year empire. Milton Hershey was a dreamer who wanted to create not just a company but an industrial paradise and after making an immense fortune he promptly gave it all away. To this day the Hershey company is controlled by a charitable trust and its profits fund the wealthiest orphanage in the world. What began as a fraternity of small family-owned businesses has grown into a cutthroat industry increasingly dominated by corporate leviathans fighting for shelf space and swallowing their smaller competitors. Jol Glenn Brenners investigation of this cloistered world is authoritative eye-opening and written with deep understanding of and feeling for her subject.