Do we like them?

Do we like Hershey?

Chocolate and snack maker (Hershey's, Reese's, Kisses) based in Hershey, Pennsylvania, USA

Our score: 5 out of 10. Mixed. Its profits fund a school for children in need, but it still faces questions over cocoa child labour. The lawsuits on that were dismissed, not found against it.

Hershey goes back to 1909. Milton and Catherine Hershey set up a trust whose only beneficiary is Milton Hershey School. That trust is still the controlling shareholder, with about 79% of the votes through 10-vote Class B shares.

The boss changed recently. Michele Buck stepped down, and Kirk Tanner became President and CEO on 18 August 2025. He came from Wendy's, and before that spent over 30 years at PepsiCo.

The big drama is cocoa. Hershey and others faced US lawsuits over child and forced labour in West Africa. A federal judge dismissed the Mali case in 2022, and in July 2025 an appeals court rejected it again. The court found no plausible causal link to the defendants' sourcing. That is a legal result, not a clean bill of health.

Consumer label cases went the same way. In 2019 a Boston federal judge dismissed two suits saying Hershey and Nestle should have disclosed child labour on their labels. The judge said the consumers hadn't shown they were deceived. Hershey says it is committed to eliminating child labour in cocoa. We land in the middle.