Business Notes CONFECTIONS

The average chocolate candy bar melts at 78 degrees F. The average day in the Saudi Arabian desert can peak at a toasty 120 degrees. Result: a sticky problem for G.I.s who crave a little chocolate as they wage a waiting war along the Saudi-Iraqi border. Last week Pennsylvania's Hershey Foods launched an all-out offensive against the candy-killing climate of the Middle East. Its secret weapon: 144,000 Desert Bars. Designed to meet the Army's demand for "heat-resistant" milk chocolate, the Desert Bar approximates the flavor of its home-front cousins, while standing up to temperatures of well over 100 degrees without turning into chocolate syrup. Hershey, which produced its first heat-resistant chocolates for the Army in 1937, refuses to divulge the desert-defying processes behind its latest creation.