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This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of The Hershey Company for IZEA. All opinions are 100% mine.
Recently, I had an amazing opportunity to learn more about HERSHEY’S Milk Chocolate and how they use only farm fresh milk. If anyone knows me, they know this was right up my alley because I love their chocolate (my favorite is the HERSHEY’S Milk Chocolate Bars with Almonds).
What I was surprised to learn is that HERSHEY’S Milk Chocolate is made with farm fresh milk. All of the milk is local milk, delivered fresh daily from farms within 100 miles, to ensure that it is at its peak freshness. We had the opportunity to go to Meadow Lane Dairy, one of the dairy farms that provides the milk for HERSHEY’S Milk Chocolate.
Today, Hershey is one of the few large-scale chocolate makers in the U.S. to use 100% farm fresh milk in their delicious HERSHEY’S Milk Chocolate. The farm that we visited (just one of the many local farms where they get the fresh milk) is run by a third generation dairy farmer. He and his wife and four kids run the farm and gave us the opportunity to look around. I was impressed because he has the same pride in his farm that I imagine his grandfather had in it when he started the farm.
I love knowing that fresh milk goes into HERSHEY’S Milk Chocolate, along with a few other familiar ingredients like cocoa and cane sugar, and that it has no artificial flavors, preservatives or sweeteners. It’s the farm fresh milk that gives HERSHEY’S Milk Chocolate the creamy, delicious taste you know and love.
So… a little bit about the farm: When we were at the farm, we learned that the cows all have “cow fitness tracker,” technology that monitors their health – just like ones people use to track steps. This helps ensure the cows are healthy to produce fresh milk. They have a nutritionist for their cows and the farmer said “I think the cows eat better than I do.” Now that’s a great farmer! 
More than 17,000 cows are milked each day to supply the fresh milk for HERSHEY’S Milk Chocolate. Once the cows are milked, the milk is tested and then sent to the factory where Hershey tests it again, to be sure that it is VERY fresh before it is used in HERSHEY’S Milk Chocolate. The thing that surprised me the most was how clean the farm was – it didn’t smell like a farm at all. It was as if it was brand new. The cows were well cared for and so was the milk. They use sand in the stalls for the cows to lay on because it is softer for the cow’s joints and they wash the sand, too.
Plus, it keeps the cows cool in the summer and warm in the winter. They only use hay in the birthing stall. Personally, I love knowing that they use fresh milk in their HERSHEY’S Milk Chocolate. I knew that I trusted Hershey (we’re from Pennsylvania, after all!), but I didn’t know the real reason that it tasted so great. When Milton Hershey started testing recipes for his milk chocolate, he used fresh milk (rather than powdered milk) when developing his formula because that was what he was familiar with in creating his caramels. When he used fresh milk, it gave the milk chocolate a taste that was unique, and just better all around. So, he started only using fresh, local milk from within 100 miles of Hershey, Pennsylvania in his HERSHEY’S Milk Chocolate and the company hasn’t gone away from that since. PS: we even got to make our own chocolate and … wow! Pretty amazing! I can’t wait to take the kids back to Hershey, Pennsylvania to experience HERSHEY’S Milk Chocolate like I did.
Since The Hershey Company’s commitment to simple ingredients starts at the source of using quality ingredients, like farm fresh milk in HERSHEY’S Milk Chocolate, it truly makes me know that this is a company that I can trust. Plus, I love that they use local farms to supply their milk. If you want to learn more, visit www.FreshMilkChocolate.com – where you can find out about all of the simple ingredients that go into HERSHEY’S Milk Chocolate.
