By Katie Deighton

On good days Brad Reese wakes up, throws on a bright orange shirt with the Reese's logo and hits the streets of West Palm Beach, Fla., to spread his love of the peanut-butter cups his grandfather invented.

Unfortunately for Hershey, current owner of the candy business, Reese also has bad days.

The 70-year-old grandson of H.B. Reese is the self-appointed defender of his family brand, a role that takes many forms. When he's not celebrating the candy, he's often bashing its owner. And lately he's been doing a lot of the latter.

"They ruined my fun," he said of Hershey.

His Reese's opinions include but aren't limited to: Hershey should advertise the General Mills-produced Reese's Puffs Cereal on its website; Hershey should create a Reese's-branded credit card; Hershey should put more money into advertising Reese's in Europe. More than anything, he worries that any change in ingredients will erode consumer trust in the Reese's brand.

A Valentine's Day letter to Hershey executive Todd Scott, accusing the company of doing just that by quietly replacing milk chocolate and peanut butter with cheaper substitutes, went viral after MrBeast directed his 34 million followers to it. The YouTuber, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, made sure to note the "real peanut butter" in his Feastables cups.

Hershey said the famous peanut-butter cups are made the same way they always have been. The company noted it makes recipe adjustments to some Reese's products to allow for new shapes, sizes and innovations.

Reese hates what he calls the new flavor, but he still eats -- and champions -- the candy.

"What my grandfather did was astronomical and to this day I'm in awe, and I like to honor him," said Reese, who was 7 when Hershey bought the family business.

For the best part of a decade, he has been posting almost exclusively Reese's-tinted thoughts to LinkedIn, where his job description often matches his mood: "Reese's Economic Engine," "Growing REESE'S Worldwide One Peanut Butter Cup at a Time," "Protecting REESE's Brand Integrity."

"There is no formal relationship between Brad Reese and the Hershey Company or Reese's," a company spokesperson said.

People who meet Reese in his brightly colored paraphernalia could be forgiven for thinking otherwise.

"You run into people asking 'Do you have any free Reese's?'" he said. "And I say, 'No, I get much more pleasure and satisfaction out of watching people pay for them.'"

People also ask how much Reese gets paid to be a brand ambassador. "They don't believe that I'm out here doing what I'm doing, and not being an employee," he said.

Reese said his parents never encouraged him or his four siblings to get involved with the Hershey Company. His younger brother Andrew shares his love of the brand, and even owns the rights to their grandfather's name. But the other siblings prefer not to draw attention to their candy royalty status, he said.

Other Reese family members -- H.B. had 16 children, 13 of whom survived into adulthood -- wish Brad would do the same; a group of them recently issued a statement distancing themselves from his views.

Reese's father, Charles, co-owned the H.B. Reese Candy Company with his five brothers until 1963, when they merged the business with what was then the Hershey Chocolate Corporation. Hershey said the brothers' decision to sell transformed a $12 million-$14 million brand into a more than $3 billion icon.

It also transformed the Reeses' lives. Brad Reese spent his early childhood in Hershey, Pa. Immediately after the sale, his newly moneyed parents moved the family to Minneapolis. They divorced soon after and his father moved to Niagara Falls, N.Y., to oversee the construction of the Skylon Tower, which was financed in part by his Hershey shareholdings.

Reese said he disclaimed any inheritance. He served a stint in the military before attending Babson College and working as a trader and a consultant in digital infrastructure.

In 2007, he got his first taste of life online, blogging about the strategies and inner workings of Cisco on the website Network World and later his own site, BradReese.com. Wall Street Journal articles reporting on Cisco at the time occasionally featured the phrase "first reported by blogger Brad Reese."

"He was outspoken, he wanted to do a good job," said Larry Chafin, chief executive and chairman of Pluto Cloud Services, who blogged for Network World at the same time as Reese. "Cisco didn't like us too much."

By 2015, Cisco's CEO had resigned and Reese felt the company was in good shape. It was time to move on. He turned his site into a shrine to Reese's -- and a hub for his opinions on Hershey's management of the candy. It also features links to his social media and dating profiles.

Reese briefly moved back to Hershey in 2012, 50 years after his father left, but eventually settled in Florida. He now lives a relaxed beachside life. When he's not spreading his love of Reese's, he spends weekday afternoons singing Rolling Stones songs on karaoke machines in bars near the pier.

Reese has spent the past 15 years in and out of remission with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which often fatigues him, he said. Once a month, he receives a five-hour infusion of immunotherapy. It hasn't yet put a stop to his work as the unofficial Reese's brand keeper.

At this point, a job at Hershey wouldn't interest him -- he prefers the freedom to say what he wants.

"You have to have a purpose in life," Reese said.

Write to Katie Deighton at katie.deighton@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 28, 2026 05:30 ET (10:30 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.