The Hershey Company

After an apprenticeship to a confectioner in 1873, Milton S. Hershey founded a candy shop in Philadelphia. This candy shop was only open for six years, after which Hershey apprenticed with another confectioner in Denver, where he learned to make caramel.[12] After another failed business attempt in New York, Hershey returned to Pennsylvania, where he founded the Lancaster Caramel Company in 1886. The use of fresh milk in caramels proved successful,[13] and in 1900, after seeing chocolate-making machines for the first time at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Hershey sold his caramel company for $1,000,000[13] (equal to $30,732,000 today), and began to concentrate on chocolate manufacturing, stating to people who questioned him, "Caramels are just a fad, but chocolate is a permanent thing."

In 1896, Hershey built a milk-processing plant so he could create and refine a recipe for his milk chocolate candies. In 1899, he developed the Hershey process, which is less sensitive to milk quality than traditional methods. In 1900, he began manufacturing Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bars, also known as Hershey's Bars or Hershey Bars.

Hershey's Cocoa ad from 1918

In 1903, Hershey began construction of a chocolate plant in his hometown of Derry Church, Pennsylvania, which later came to be known as Hershey, Pennsylvania.[13] The town was an inexpensive place for the workers and their families to live; however, the factory itself was built without windows so that employees would not be distracted. To increase employee morale, Hershey provided leisure activities and created what would later become Hersheypark to make sure the citizens enjoyed themselves. The milk chocolate bars manufactured at this plant proved popular, and the company grew rapidly.

In 1907, he introduced a new candy - bite-sized, flat-bottomed, conical-shaped pieces of chocolate that he named "Hershey's Kiss". At first, they were individually wrapped by hand in squares of aluminum foil. The introduction of machine wrapping in 1921 simplified the process while adding the small paper ribbon to the top of the package to indicate that it was a genuine Hershey product.[13] Today, 70 million of the candies are produced daily.[14] Other products introduced included Mr. Goodbar (1925), containing peanuts in milk chocolate, Hershey's Syrup (1926), semisweet chocolate chips (1928), and the Krackel bar containing crisped rice (1938).

Harry Burnett Reese invented Reese's Peanut Butter Cups after founding the H.B. Reese Candy Company in 1923.[15] Reese died on May 16, 1956 in West Palm Beach, Florida leaving the company to his six sons.[16] On July 2, 1963 the H.B. Reese Candy Company merged with the Hershey Chocolate Corporation in a tax-free stock-for-stock merger. In 2020 after 57-years of stock splits,[17] the original 666,316 shares of Hershey common stock received by the Reese family represented 16 million Hershey shares valued at $2.5 billion that pay annual cash dividends of $51.4 million.[18][19] In 1969, only 6-years after the Reese/Hershey merger, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups became The Hershey Company's top seller.[20] As of September 20, 2012, Reese's is the best-selling candy brand in the United States with sales of $2.603 billion, and is the fourth-best-selling candy brand globally with sales of $2.679 billion—only $76 million (2.8%) of its sales are from outside the United States market.[21]

Labor unrest came to Hershey in the late 1930s as a Congress of Industrial Organizations-backed union attempted to organize the factory workers. A failed sit-down strike in 1937 ended in violence, as loyalist workers and local dairy farmers beat many of the strikers as they attempted to leave the plant. By 1940, an affiliate of the American Federation of Labor had successfully organized Hershey's workers under the leadership of John Shearer, who became the first president of Local Chapter Number 464 of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers' International Union. Local 464 still represents the Hershey workforce.

Shortly before World War II, Bruce Murrie, son of long-time Hershey's president William F.R. Murrie, struck a deal with Forrest Mars to create hard sugar-coated chocolate that would be called M&M's (for Mars and Murrie). Murrie had a 20% interest in the confection, which used Hershey chocolate during the rationing era during World War II. In 1948, Mars bought out Murrie's interest and became one of Hershey's main competitors.[22]

In 1969, Hershey received a license from Rowntree's to manufacture and market Kit Kat and Rolo in the United States. After Hershey's competitor Nestlé acquired Rowntree's in 1988, it was still required to honor the licensing agreement, and thus Hershey continues to make and market the brands in the U.S. The license would be revoked and revert to Nestlé if Hershey were sold.[23] It thus became a sticking point in Hershey's failed attempt to attract a serious buyer in 2002, knowing that Kit-Kat and Rolo would then have to be forfeited to Nestlé. Even Nestlé rejected Hershey's asking price feeling that the economics of such a deal did not work.[24]

In 1988, Hershey's acquired the rights to manufacture and distribute many Cadbury-branded products in the United States (except gum and mints, which are part of Mondelēz International). In 2015, they sued a British importer to halt imports of British Cadbury chocolate, angering consumers.[25][26] A merger between Mondelēz and Hershey's was considered but abandoned in 2016 after Hershey's turned down a $23 billion cash-and-stock bid.[27]

In 1977, Hershey acquired Y&S Candies, founded in 1845, and became the makers of Twizzlers licorice candies.

In 1986, Hershey's began a brief foray into cough drops when it acquired the Luden's cough drops brand. By 2001, though, the brand had been sold to Pharmacia (now part of Pfizer),[28] and Luden's eventually became a product of Prestige Brands.[29] Hershey's kept Luden's 5th Avenue bar.

In 1996, Hershey purchased the American operations of the Leaf Candy Company from Huhtamäki.

In 1999, the Hershey Pasta Group was divested to several equity partners to form the New World Pasta company (now part of Ebro Foods).

On July 25, 2002, it became public knowledge that the Hershey Trust Company was seeking to sell its controlling interest in the Hershey Foods Corporation. The value of Hershey stock skyrocketed 25% with over 19 million shares trading that day. Over the following 55 days, widespread press coverage, as well as pressure from Pennsylvania Attorney General Mike Fisher, the community of Hershey, and Dauphin County Orphans' Court Senior Judge Warren G. Morgan, led to the sale being abandoned. The seven Hershey trustees who voted to sell Hershey Foods on September 17, 2002, for US$12.5 billion to the William Wrigley Jr. Company (now part of Mars Incorporated) were removed by Attorney General Fisher and Judge Morgan.[30] Ten of the 17 trustees were forced to resign and four new members who lived locally were appointed. The former Pennsylvania Attorney General, LeRoy S. Zimmerman, became the new chairman of the reconstituted Milton Hershey School Trustees. Mr. Zimmerman has publicly committed to having the Milton Hershey School Trust always retain its interest in The Hershey Company.

In December 2004, Hershey acquired the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Corp. from The Shansby Group.[31]

In 2005, Krave Jerky was founded by Jon Sebastiani after he trained for a marathon and looked for a healthy source of energy.[32] Alliance Consumer Growth, a private equity group, invested in Krave Jerky in 2012.[33] Hershey's purchased the company in 2015 for $240 million.[34] Hershey would later in 2020 sell Krave Jerky to Sonoma Brands, the food industry incubator founded by Jon Sebastiani in 2016.[35]

In July 2005, Hershey acquired the Berkeley, California-based boutique chocolate-maker Scharffen Berger.[36] In November 2005, Hershey acquired Joseph Schmidt Confections, the San Francisco-based chocolatier, and in November 2006, Hershey acquired Dagoba Organic Chocolate, a boutique chocolate maker based in Ashland, Oregon.

In June 2006, Philadelphia city councilman Juan Ramos called for Hershey's to stop marketing "Ice Breakers Pacs", a kind of mint, due to the resemblance of its packaging to a kind that was used for illegal street drugs.[37]

In September 2006, ABC News reported that several Hershey chocolate products were reformulated to replace cocoa butter with vegetable oil as an emulsifier. According to the company, this change was made to reduce the costs of producing the products instead of raising their prices or decreasing the sizes. Some consumers complained that the taste was different, but the company stated that in the company-sponsored blind taste tests, about half of consumers preferred the new versions. As the new versions no longer met the Food and Drug Administration's official definition of "milk chocolate", the changed items were relabeled from stating they were "milk chocolate" and "made with chocolate" to "chocolate candy" and "chocolatey."[38]

In December 2011, Hershey reached an agreement to acquire Brookside Foods Ltd., a privately held confectionery company based in Abbotsford, British Columbia.[39]

In January 2015, Hershey announced that they had acquired Krave Jerky, marking the company's first foray outside of the confectionery market in more than a decade.[40]

In April 2015, the Hershey chocolate plant on East Chocolate Avenue in Hershey Pennsylvania was demolished to make way for mixed-use development.[41]

In 2016, Hershey acquired barkTHINS, a New York-based chocolate snack foods company that expected to generate between $65 million and $75 million in revenue for that year, for $290 million.[42][34]

An August 2016 attempt to sell Hershey to Mondelez International was scuttled because of objections by the Hershey Trust.[23]

In 2017, Hershey acquired Amplify Snack Brands, Austin, Texas-based maker of SkinnyPop, in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $1.6 billion.[43]

In September 2018, Hershey announced to buy Pirate Brands from B&G Foods for $420 million in an all-cash deal.[44][45][46]

In August 2019, Hershey announced it would purchase protein bar maker One Brands LLC for $397 million.[47]

In October 2019, Hershey's announced a collaboration with Yuengling to produce a limited release collaboration beer titled Yuengling Hershey's Chocolate Porter, becoming Hershey's first licensed beer partnership.[48]

Hershey has been criticized for not having programs to ensure sustainable and ethical cocoa purchases, lagging behind its competitors in fair trade measures.[69]

The "Raise the Bar, Hershey!" campaign was launched in September 2010 by Global Exchange, Green America, the Oasis Trust, and the International Labor Rights Forum. The purpose of the Raise the Bar Campaign was to pressure Hershey to commit "to take immediate action to eliminate forced and child labor [...] from Hershey's cocoa supply"; "to sourcing 100% Fair Trade Certified cocoa beans by 2012 for at least one of its top five selling chocolate bars [...] making at least one additional top five selling bar 100% Fair Trade Certified every two years thereafter"; and that "the majority of Hershey's cocoa across all products will be Fair Trade Certified by 2022". The pressure was particularly directed at Whole Foods Market, which announced on October 3, 2012, that it would cease carrying Hershey's Scharffen Berger line.[70] The Campaign stated, "Whole Foods' decision follows more than 40 natural food retailers and coops publicly expressing concern about carrying Scharffen Berger and Dagoba products as a consequence of the giant chocolate maker's refusal to address child labor in its supply chain".[70] The same day, Hershey's announced it would "source 100 percent certified cocoa for its global chocolate product lines by 2020 and accelerate its programs to help eliminate child labor in the cocoa regions of West Africa".[71]

In 2019, Hershey announced that they could not guarantee that their chocolate products were free from child slave labor, as they could trace only about 50% of their purchasing back to the farm level. The Washington Post noted that the commitment taken in 2001 to eradicate such practices within 4 years had not been kept, neither at the due deadline of 2005, nor within the revised deadlines of 2008 and 2010, and that the result was not likely to be achieved for 2020 either.[72]