Hickory Farms Chocolate Bar Wrappers of the early 1970’s!

Hickory Farms is mostly associated as a catalog retailer of meats and cheeses these days (with the occasional holiday pop-up store), but over the years they’ve had permanent mall locations and offered all sorts of consumable gifts, including a run of delicious-sounding chocolate bars I recently discovered that were first released in the early 1970’s!

The history of Hickory Farms is wonderfully and succinctly summarized over on Hickory Farms current homepage:

Hickory Farms history summarized from HickoryFarms.com

This vintage image of a Hickory Farms mall store evokes quite a lot of nostalgia:

Hickory Farms of Ohio mall storefront – circa 1970 – source HickoryFarms.com

One can imagine shopping for gifts for a family member or perhaps gathering supplies for a casual get together with friends. And filling a shopping bag just like this one:

Vintage Hickory Farms store shopping bag – photo courtesy Dan Goodsell

For some added nostalgia and a sense of what Hickory Farms was like and what it meant to people back during this era, here are a pair of vintage television commercials from the early 1980’s.

So it was that Hickory Farms’ very first retail store opened in 1959 and by 1981 there were over one thousand of them across the United States and Canada. In 1970, those outlets were selling their own private label Hickory Farms chocolate bars. Produced by the Albert Heijn company of Zaandam Holland, the chocolate bars came in many flavors.

I was recently thrilled to discover the existence of these and at the same time add a set of them to my collection and historical archives and here they are:

Hickory Farms of Ohio – produced by Heijn – BitterSweet Chocolate – 3.5 oz candy bar wrapper -1970

Hickory Farms of Ohio – produced by Heijn – BitterSweet Chocolate – 3.5 oz candy bar wrapper -1970
Hickory Farms of Ohio – produced by Heijn – Irish Coffee Milk Chocolate – 3 1/2 oz candy bar wrapper -1970
Hickory Farms of Ohio – produced by Heijn – SemiSweet Chocolate – 3.5 oz candy bar wrapper -1970
Hickory Farms of Ohio – produced by Heijn – Orange Milk Chocolate – 3.5 oz candy bar wrapper -1970
Hickory Farms of Ohio – produced by Heijn – Milk Chocolate – 3.5 oz candy bar wrapper -1970
Hickory Farms of Ohio – produced by Heijn – Irish Coffee Milk Chocolate – 3 1/2 oz candy bar wrapper -1970
Hickory Farms of Ohio – produced by Heijn – SemiSweet Chocolate – 3.5 oz candy bar wrapper -1970
Hickory Farms of Ohio – produced by Heijn – Orange Milk Chocolate – 3.5 oz candy bar wrapper -1970
Hickory Farms of Ohio – produced by Heijn – Milk Chocolate – 3.5 oz candy bar wrapper -1970

At some point in the ensuing years, the wrapper design would receive a series of tweaks, incorporating the updated Hickory Farms graphic. The difference between the two is highlighted here:

Hickory Farms 1970 wrapper design vs later update

And here are redesigned wrappers for ten different flavors of Hickory Farms chocolate bars:

Hickory Farms of Ohio – produced by Heijn – BitterSweet Chocolate – 3 oz candy bar wrapper – early 1970’s
Hickory Farms of Ohio – produced by Heijn – Coffee Brandy flavored Chocolate – 3 oz candy bar wrapper – early 1970’s
Hickory Farms of Ohio – produced by Heijn – Coffee Milk Chocolate – 2 1/2 oz candy bar wrapper – early 1970’s
Hickory Farms of Ohio – produced by Heijn – Milk Chocolate – 2 1/2 oz candy bar wrapper – early 1970’s
Hickory Farms of Ohio – produced by Heijn – Milk Chocolate w Chips of Mint – 2 1/2 oz candy bar wrapper – early 1970’s
Hickory Farms of Ohio – produced by Heijn – Milk Chocolate with Hazelnuts – 2 1/2 oz candy bar wrapper – early 1970’s
Hickory Farms of Ohio – produced by Heijn – Milk Chocolate with Walnuts – 2 1/2 oz candy bar wrapper – early 1970’s
Hickory Farms of Ohio – produced by Heijn – Orange Milk Chocolate – 2 1/2 oz candy bar wrapper – early 1970’s
Hickory Farms of Ohio – produced by Heijn – Semi Sweet Chocolate – 3 oz candy bar wrapper – early 1970’s
Hickory Farms of Ohio – produced by Heijn – Strawberry flavored Milk Chocolate – 2 1/2 oz candy bar wrapper – early 1970’s

And finally here are a few smaller, 1-ounce bar wrappers:

Hickory Farms of Ohio – produced by Heijn – Coffee Milk Chocolate – 1 oz candy bar wrapper -1970
Hickory Farms of Ohio – produced by Heijn – BitterSweet Chocolate – 1 oz candy bar wrapper -1970
Hickory Farms of Ohio – produced by Heijn – Milk Chocolate – 1 oz candy bar wrapper -1970
Hickory Farms of Ohio – produced by Heijn – Milk Chocolate with Hazelnuts – 1 oz candy bar wrapper -1970
Hickory Farms of Ohio – produced by Heijn – SemiSweet Chocolate – 1 oz candy bar wrapper -1970

And that is everything I’ve got on Hickory Farms early 70’s chocolate bar line. As you can see, they offered a rich assortment of flavors and they stuck around long enough to get at least one wrapper redesign (and maybe more).

It’s great fun to have discovered the existence of these and to be able to document them here and share the memory of them.

See you next time!

About Jason Liebig

A New York City based writer, editor and sometimes actor. After spending much of the 1990′s in the comic book business helping tell the stories of Marvel Comics’ X-Men as series editor, he has since split his time between developing his own entertainment properties while still consulting and working on others. Having been described as “the Indiana Jones of lost and forgotten candy”, Jason is one of the country’s premier candy collectors and historians with his discoveries appearing in countless blogs, magazines, newspaper articles, and books. Always happy to share his knowledge and unique perspectives on this colorful part of our popular culture, Jason has consulted with New York’s Museum of Food and Drink and has also been a featured guest on Food Network’s Heavyweights, France’s M6 Capital, and New York’s TheActionRoom.com. My Google Profile+
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4 Responses to Hickory Farms Chocolate Bar Wrappers of the early 1970’s!

  1. Brandon / Waffle Whiffer says:

    Thanks for this post. Going to the mall in the 1970s included an anticipated trip to the Hickory Farms store for free samples of meats and cheeses. I remember them selling a variety of snack crackers, too, but have no memory of their candies.

  2. Bryan says:

    You never cease to amaze me with what you find. I am always surprised by what I learn here. I never knew Hickory Farms sold chocolate! I remember them having kiosks in the mall when I was a kid, but they only sold sausage sticks and cheese gift sets and similar items.

  3. Eric Hendrix says:

    I remember eating some of these. The milk chocolate with hazelnuts and the milk chocolate with walnuts. Didn’t have two many of them, but oddly enough I remember the wrapper change. The first ones were good and fresh, but later there was freshness issues, they were very stale. The quality dropped, which means less sales, which means even more quality drop. At the same time higher quality imported bars become more available that were cheaper. They also had some Old Fashioned Candy Sticks for a while with Hickory Farms on printed on the stick’s wrapper, either white or black with white-highlights.

  4. Mike Choman says:

    Jason, whatever happened to Hickory Farms mall stores? Are they still around anymore?

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