Middle Atlantic States: Pennsylvania: The Snack Food State?

The state nickname is the Keystone State, but Pennsylvania is a major producer of snack foods and leads the United States in sales of potato chips, pretzels, and chocolate and cocoa products. The Tasty Baking Company, located in Philadelphia and Oxford, is one of the largest independent baking companies in the United States and is the leading snack cake provider in the Mid-Atlantic region. The Tastykake cake is distributed in forty-nine states.

Even more nationally known is the Hershey’s chocolate bar. The originator of Hershey’s chocolate, Milton Hershey, was born in 1857 in Derry Church, Pennsylvania. After becoming fascinated with the German chocolate-making machinery exhibited at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Hershey returned to Derry Church to build what was to become the world’s largest chocolate manufacturing plant. Hershey’s goal was to make a product similar to the Swiss chocolate luxury product that would be affordable to the American public. Hershey’s milk chocolate quickly became the first nationally marketed product of its kind. Derry Church, Pennsylvania, has become Hershey, Pennsylvania, and the streets are lighted with replicas of Hershey’s Kisses candies.