Milton Hershey was brought up on a farm, and was the only surviving child of the Hershey family. Milton left school aged 14yrs mainly due to the amount of times his family had moved over the years. Without any qualifications he went on to start an apprenticeship as a junior printer. However this failed when he got frustrated with working as a junior printer and he threw his hat into the rollers, destroying the print that was currently being made. He then went on to complete a four year apprenticeship with a candy manufacturer (Joseph Royer) and in 1876 he built his first business, a candy manufacturing company. This didn’t work though and he found himself without a job or a business when he couldn’t get any sales.

Later in 1883, he built a new business the Lancaster Caramel Company, this swiftly became the leading manufacturer of candy-goods. With a special caramel recipe which he had discovered whilst travelling, Milton’s business soon became the king of the candy world. A decade later he became amazed by the way in which the German’s machinery made chocolate at an event, he quickly purchased some of the machines and headed back to his company. Enthralled to be able to create the luxurious milk chocolate, Milton started manufacturing thousands of tonnes of the candies. His sales soared higher than he ever thought possible, and to this day, although Milton passed 65yrs ago, his business is still going strong, with over $5.3 billion in revenue a year, not to mention much of the traditional recipes Milton used back at the beginning. Goes to show, remember where your roots are