Snacking powerhouse showcasing its entire sweets and salty snacks portfolio in one booth

HERSHEY, Pa. (Sept. 30, 2022) – For the first time since its recent acquisition of Dot’s Homestyle Pretzels, The Hershey Company (NYSE: HSY) is bringing its entire sweets and salty snacks portfolio to a single trade show booth at the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) Show Expo in Las Vegas from October 2-4, 2022. Visitors to the Hershey booth (#4005) at the Las Vegas Convention Center will see various new products including the just-announced Reese’s Big Cup Stuffed with Reese’s Puffs cereal and hear from experts in the convenience store space.

Hershey continues to build on its vision to be a leading snacking powerhouse with sweet and salty snack offerings to meet consumers across various snacking occasions. Through its “All Together Now” messaging at the NACS Show Expo, trade show attendees will be able to sample the best of sweet and salty snacks, including products from Hershey’s latest acquisitions, Dot’s Homestyle Pretzels, along with SkinnyPop Popcorn, Paqui, Pirate’s Booty, ONE™ Bars and Lily’s Sweets.

“We are thrilled to bring the latest products of our diverse sweet and salty snacks portfolio to the NACS Show Expo,” said Marlene Creighton, Chief Sales Officer, The Hershey Company. “We are proud to be a leading snacking powerhouse and know just how important it is to continue to meet our consumers where they are in terms of occasions and snacking options, especially when making decisions for our latest innovations.”

Leading Categories and Leveraging Popularity

Hershey is continuously honing in on its top categories for convenience stores, which includes its best-selling brand in this channel, Reese’s, along with the gummies, salty snacking and better-for-you categories. Within these spaces, NACS Show Expo attendees can expect the tried-and-true portfolio of brands from Hershey, along with innovations from Reese’s, Jolly Ranchers, Twizzlers and ONE™ Bars, hitting store shelves in November 2022.

Reese’s constantly proves innovations are a success for this brand. When the brand introduced Reese’s Cups with Pretzels, it became the #1 innovation in the stuffed platform and had the highest consumer repeat rate out of all innovations in the stuffed category. Leveraging this momentum, the brand will officially launch Reese’s Big Cup Stuffed with Reese’s Puffs cereal, featuring Reese’s Puffs cereal inside a Reese’s Cup, next month nationwide.

Further expanding on Reese’s popularity, the brand has seen a strong track record of steady growth in the cookies and Hershey’s Dipped Snacks categories. Since 2017, cookie sales for The Hershey Company have increased by 4% and dipped pretzels sales have increased by 53%. Armed with these key insights from consumers, the brand is introducing Reese’s Dipped Animal Crackers – bite-sized animal crackers covered in peanut butter candy and dipped in milk chocolate. Over the past five years, The Hershey Company has found that the gummy category is outpacing the overall sweets category. The sweets category grew by 4.6% from 2017 to 2021, while the gummy category increased by 10.3%. With this in mind, Hershey is expanding its gummy offerings from Jolly Ranchers and Twizzlers. Jolly Ranchers Gummies Sour Lemonade Stand will feature three lemonade-inspired flavors – Sour Cherry Lemonade, Sour Strawberry Lemonade, and Sour Lime Lemonade. Twizzlers Gummies will feature three unique combination flavors new to the United States – Grape and Cherry, Peach and Cherry, and Lemonade and Cherry.

On the heels of announcing new innovations, KIT KAT® will be making wishes come true and officially designating a limited-edition product as a permanent offering. When KIT KAT® first launched KIT KAT® Birthday Cake, Hershey found that 46.2% of consumers were new to KIT KAT® products, making it the most popular limited-time-only launch in the brand’s history. KIT KAT® Birthday Cake is becoming a permanent flavor for the brand this November in standard and king-sized bars.

Not only do these new additions from The Hershey Company’s core brands leverage the company as a sweets and snacking powerhouse, but Hershey continues to find new ways to margin this effort through acquisitions. Dot’s Homestyle Pretzels enhanced Hershey’s presence in the sweet and salty category, while recently acquired ONE™ Bars is expanding the brand into the better-for-you space. The latest offering from the better-for-you brand is perfect for mid-morning snack lovers – ONE™ Bars Crunch Cinnamon French Toast.

Rewarding Loyalty

As with listening to consumers’ wants and needs, Hershey also stays up to date in the convenience store category by focusing on customer loyalty with its retail partners.

In 2023, The Hershey Company will launch its Achieve Maximum Points (AMP) Loyalty Program. The newly revamped program has streamlined requirements and maximum flexibility for business partners. Newly enrolled stores see more than 19.5% dollar increases versus the previous year.

“The only way we have been able to grow as a company for more than 100 years is listening to our consumers and retail partners and researching trends in the confectionery and snacking categories,” said Creighton. “We know the significance of bringing our portfolio to convenience store channels and giving those passionate for our iconic brands what they want and expect while introducing our products to new consumers. We’re looking forward to expanding various categories within the convenience store space through these new products and introducing our latest sweets and snacking powerhouse portfolio at the NACS Show Expo.”

For more information about The Hershey Company and its growing portfolio of brands, please visit thehersheycompany.com or stop by booth #4005 at NACS Show Expo.

About The Hershey Company
The Hershey Company is headquartered in Hershey, Pa., and is an industry-leading snacks company known for bringing goodness to the world through its iconic brands, remarkable people and enduring commitment to help children succeed. Hershey has approximately 19,000 employees around the world who work every day to deliver delicious, quality products. The company has more than 100 brand names in approximately 80 countries around the world that drive more than $8.9 billion in annual revenues, including such iconic brand names as Hershey's, Reese's, Kit Kat®, Jolly Rancher and Ice Breakers, and fast-growing salty snacks including SkinnyPop, Pirate's Booty and Dot’s Homestyle Pretzels.

For more than 125 years, Hershey has been committed to operating fairly, ethically and sustainably. Hershey founder, Milton Hershey, created the Milton Hershey School in 1909 and since then the company has focused on helping children succeed.

To learn more visit www.thehersheycompany.com

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