Responsible Sourcing

Hershey’s Responsible Sourcing Strategy underlies our long-term value creation, strengthening our business and aims to positively contribute to the resilience of the ecosystems, people and communities we depend on to source our ingredients and make our iconic treats.

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Our Responsible Sourcing Strategy guides how we identify and manage environmental and human rights risks across our end-to-end supply chain. We work to build resilient ingredient supply chains, strengthen livelihoods, and make Hershey products that delight consumers. Informed by our commitments to human rights, environmental stewardship, and ethical business practices, our approach moves beyond compliance to focus on positive impact, partnership and continuous improvement. We do this by working closely with our suppliers, farmers and industry partners, recognizing that no company can address complex sourcing challenges alone.

Our Responsible Sourcing Strategy

Hershey’s Responsible Sourcing Strategy is built around four connected focus areas, each designed to mitigate risk while strengthening resilience across our end-to-end supply chain.

Fostering Resilient Ingredient Supply Chains

Hershey’s beloved brands rely on ingredients and raw materials grown by farmers and farming communities around the world. We focus on strengthening the resilience of our ingredient supply chains by working with suppliers and partners to address interconnected challenges such as:

Climate impacts, including emissions, deforestation and biodiversity loss
Soil, water and ecosystem health
Human rights risks and labor practices
Farmer livelihoods and financial resilience

Our approach prioritizes supply chain mapping, ingredient risk assessments, origin-level investments, supplier engagement, and long-term partnerships that enable resilient ingredient production.

Learn more about how we are building resilient supply chains across our Priority Ingredients and Raw Materials in the section below.

Responsibly Sourcing Goods and Services

Hershey relies on a global network of suppliers and business partners to manufacture and deliver our products responsibly.

Through our Responsible Sourcing Supplier Program and Responsible Recruitment and Employment Program, we engage our Tier 1 manufacturing suppliers and labor and service providers around the expectations set forth in our Supplier Code of Conduct, which covers labor and human rights, health and safety, environmental practices and business ethics. We hold Hershey-owned manufacturing facilities to the same expectations.

Promoting Transparency

Understanding where our ingredients and materials come from, and the risks and opportunities associated with them, allows us to prioritize action in our supply chain so we can best invest in the people and ecosystems we rely on.

We work to:

Map and improve visibility across our priority ingredient and material supply chains
Assess, mitigate and monitor environmental and human rights risks
Measure progress and share learnings through public reporting

By strengthening supply chain mapping, monitoring, and data systems, we can better target investments, engage suppliers meaningfully, and track outcomes over time.

Strengthening Internal Hershey Capabilities

The integration of Hershey's Responsible Sourcing Strategy across the enterprise is integral to our business strategy and long-term success. We support this integration by equipping Hershey teams with the training, tools, data and technology, and governance structures needed to implement our commitments effectively. This includes embedding responsible sourcing considerations into procurement and product development processes, supplier relationships, and long-term business strategy.

Priority Ingredients and Raw Materials

Each ingredient presents different environmental and human rights risks depending on how and where they are grown and harvested. By understanding these risks at a commodity and regional level, we can better focus our efforts, resources, and scale to safeguard human rights and protect the people and ecosystems behind the ingredients that make up our iconic, delicious snacks.

Hershey targets our efforts on the ingredients and material supply chains where we can make the biggest impact while reducing supply chain risks. Our strategies consider issues that are material to our business and are often interrelated, including: human rights and labor conditions; farmer livelihoods and financial resilience; greenhouse gas emissions; deforestation and ecosystem conversion; and biodiversity, water, and soil heath.

Our priority ingredient and materials’ strategies are grounded in five core principles:

Supply Chain Mapping & Traceability: Improving visibility into the upstream supply chain of raw materials, including to origin ¹
Supply Chain Monitoring and Verification: Using tools, such as third-party assessments, audits and certifications, to monitor supplier performance, drive continuous improvement, and strengthen Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence (HREDD) management systems
Origin Transformation: Investing in programs that drive measurable social, environmental and economic outcomes
Operational Excellence: Embedding responsible sourcing into processes, policies, training, data, technology and purchasing practices supported by governance
External Engagement: Collaborating with external stakeholders like suppliers, NGOs, and industry to drive systemic change

1 Traceability is not a chain of custody concept and does not alone allow Hershey to identify the specific source from where the ingredient comes in a given Hershey product.

Read more about each of our priority ingredients:

* We also have achieved 100 percent certified coconut and cage-free eggs as of December 2022.