Hershey's Chocolate LEGO clone sets

[jamesster]

I have no idea what forum this should go in, as it's not directly tied to any LEGO theme or even LEGO as a company, so if a mod wants to move it to a more fitting location (if needed) that would be great.

I went on a road trip to New York recently, and stopped by Hershey's Chocolate World on the way back home. The Hershey Company is the largest chocolate company in North America, but I got a bit of a surprise when I went into the gift shop... They also have LEGO clone sets. Granted, the only had two - a racecar ($5) and a semi-trailer truck ($20), and they both had the same color scheme, but what I found interesting was that these didn't have any other brand associated with them except Hershey's. The only information I could find was on one side of the box, which has the text "©2012 THE HERSHEY COMPANY", and also revealed that the sets are manufactured in Shantou, China and imported by WSP International Limited.

So, I did a quick Google search on my phone right there in the gift shop to see if anybody else had posted about these online before... Nope. So I bought the $5 racecar set just for the heck of it.

(By the way, you can click on the embedded pictures to see high-res versions of them)

If you're wondering what the back of the box looks like, it's exactly the same as the front except upside-down. The box also wasn't sealed in any way - no glue or even tape. The truck set was the same way.

Inside were two bags of pieces that don't even slightly match the color of the model on the box art, and some very poorly folded instructions.

There's the unfolded instructions. They're full of errors - in panel 1, there are two pieces that appear to be one due to a missing line, the bracket in panel 4 appears to be attached in an impossible position when it's actually floating, panel 6 shows two ways of attaching the same 2x2 plate, and there printed pieces are shown without their printing, possibly causing some confusion as to where some 1x3 tiles go.

Here's the pieces from the two bags. Note the steering wheel comes in two pieces instead of being pre-assembled, and the wheels/tires just slide onto each other instead of locking with ridges and grooves (which led to them slowly sliding off as the final model rolled around). There's also very visible white dots on most of the pieces where they were detached from the injection mold, and the plastic feels lighter and cheaper than real LEGO.

Here's the completed model. The color scheme looks nothing like the car on the CGI box art, but at least all the pieces were there. But do they hold together tightly?

Well, only a few seconds after I had taken my first photo of the finished build, that happened, so no.

The problem seems to be that the pieces are either too large or too small, and not in minor variances. The 2x4 wedge plates are too big to fit alongside each other and as a result they pop the entire spoiler assembly off due to its unequally floppy hinges...

... And these 1x1 bricks with studs on one side are so small they form a grid of empty space.

They're covered up by other pieces in the full model, but it's no excuse for such bad quality control. Other parts of the model just bounced off as I held it in my hands.

As I said earlier, I haven't been able to find any information about these Hershey's clone sets anywhere online, they aren't even on the official online Hershey's store. As far as I know, the only place you can get these are in real Hershey's stores - and even then, the only place I can confirm they're at is the Chocolate World store, I don't know if they're in any of the other ones. I'm not sure why you'd want to buy one, though.

Edited March 25, 2013 by jamesster

[just2good]

Thanks for the review!

I've never seen or heard of Hershey's being a clone brand. Seeing this review made me hungry for chocolate!

[WhiteFang]

Thank you for sharing. I will move this to the Community Forum.

[Hey Joe]

Ban Bao (which really should be Bang Bao as that's how it's pronounced in Chinese) is located in Shantou, China. They're probably the largest Chinese manufacturer of toy construction blocks. The link to their English web-site is here.

Are the blocks a little taller than Lego? If so, then they're made by Ban Bao.

I guess any person or company can commission sets, I wonder what the minimum order would be?

I also wonder if Hershey approached Lego first but were rebuffed? Maybe Lego wanted too much $$$? They certainly want too much of mine so I wouldn't be surprised.

Interesting!

Joe

[jamesster]

Thanks for the review!

I've never seen or heard of Hershey's being a clone brand. Seeing this review made me hungry for chocolate!

Heh, I actually wasn't really intending for this to be a review, but I guess it is.

Thank you for sharing. I will move this to the Community Forum.

Ok, thanks!

Ban Bao (which really should be Bang Bao as that's how it's pronounced in Chinese) is located in Shantou, China. They're probably the largest Chinese manufacturer of toy construction blocks. The link to their English web-site is here.

Are the blocks a little taller than Lego? If so, then they're made by Ban Bao.

I guess any person or company can commission sets, I wonder what the minimum order would be?

I also wonder if Hershey approached Lego first but were rebuffed? Maybe Lego wanted too much $$$? They certainly want too much of mine so I wouldn't be surprised.

Interesting!

Joe

I don't think Ban Bao was involved with this; the pieces are not only the exact same size as LEGO, but they're the exact same shape - seems they copied LEGO pieces directly. The only pieces that aren't taken directly from LEGO (that I can tell) are the 1x1 bricks with studs on their sides, which also have holes for studs on the opposite side of the brick from the stud. And while the wheels lack the ridges and grooves that make LEGO tires grip to their hubs, they otherwise look identical.

[CorneliusMurdock]

That's really disappointing. Not that it's a crappy knockoff, but that it's not made of chocolate.

[BlueberryWaffles]

Yeah.... I wish there was lego chocolate.

[Hey Joe]

Yeah.... I wish there was lego chocolate.

I'd probably eat it before I finished it!

Joe