HERSHEY, Pa., April 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The Hershey Company (NYSE: HSY), North America's leading chocolate and confectionery manufacturer, today announced an increase in the wholesale prices of its domestic confectionery line.

An increase of approximately 4-5 percent on the Company's standard bar, king-size bar, 6-pack and vending lines is effective immediately. These products represent roughly one-third of the Company's portfolio. This action will help offset the Company's input costs, including raw and packaging materials, fuel, utilities and transportation. While there has been no change in list prices on these impacted items since December 2004, over this period costs have continued to rise.

"Our primary business objective is to win in the market place. As we implement this pricing action we will work with our customers to create programs which will drive retail takeaway," said Christopher J. Baldwin, Senior Vice President, President North American Commercial Group. "Given the mid-year timing of this pricing action and our commitment to planned consumer and customer promotions and merchandising events, we expect minimal financial impact from the pricing in 2007."

Safe Harbor Statement

This release contains statements which are forward-looking. These statements are made based upon current expectations which are subject to risk and uncertainty. Actual results may differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Factors which could cause results to differ materially include, but are not limited to: our ability to implement and generate expected ongoing annual savings from the initiatives to advance our value-enhancing strategy; changes in raw material and other costs and selling price increases; our ability to implement improvements to and reduce costs associated with our supply chain; the impact of future developments related to the recent product recall and temporary plant closure in Canada, including our ability to recover costs we incurred for the recall and plant closure from responsible third-parties; pension cost factors, such as actuarial assumptions, market performance and employee retirement decisions; changes in our stock price, and resulting impacts on our expenses for incentive compensation, stock options and certain employee benefits; market demand for our new and existing products; changes in our business environment, including actions of competitors and changes in consumer preferences; changes in governmental laws and regulations, including taxes; risks and uncertainties related to our international operations; and such other matters as discussed in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for 2006.

SOURCE The Hershey Company

CONTACT: Media, Kirk Saville, +1-717-534-7641, or Financial, Mark Pogharian +1-717-534-7556