Hershey’s beloved brands rely on ingredients and raw materials grown by millions of people around the world, many of which are small, independent farmers.
Each ingredient presents unique sourcing challenges and risks since environmental, social and labor practices vary across commodities and by region. By understanding the risks that are specific to each raw material and region, we can better use our scale and resources to safeguard human rights and protect the people and ecosystems behind the ingredients that make up our iconic, delicious snacks.
While every ingredient is important, Hershey focuses on—and has specific strategies and commitments—for the following priority ingredients: cocoa, dairy, sugar, palm oil, as well as pulp and paper. We also have commitments to sourcing 100 percent certified coconut and cage-free eggs.
Hershey partnered with human rights NGO Verité to develop a heatmap to analyze risk as defined by our salient and material issues across our key value chains and geographic footprint. (Read more about that work here and on our Human Rights webpage.) We reviewed the scope of our current responsible sourcing commitments against the risks identified by the heatmap and defined our priority ingredients and raw materials based on sustainability and business risks and our ability to deliver positive impact.
Our responsible sourcing commitments for our priority ingredients account for the specific sustainability challenges faced in the communities and ecosystems where they are sourced. In addition to working with suppliers and farmers to address these issues, we implement a variety of tools and approaches, including: