The Hershey Company stands for excellence. The Hershey Company has worked hard to establish and maintain a good reputation for their confections, as well as for the work they do. Milton Hershey, the founder of this company, gave most of his fortune to create The Milton Hershey School. This private school was created to offer a stable life for children from low-income families and top-quality education at no cost. They have also established a code to conduct that gives them the tools and information necessary to be responsible, ethical, and transparent with their customers. The Hershey Company’s global expansion is expected to continue to maintain the vision of its founders and foster goodwill within the communities that are involved.
Hershey’s 2017 Social Corporate Responsibility Report broke down the company’s goals into four segments. These were “Our Shared Goodness Promise:” shared worlds, shared planets and shared business. Shared Futures involves investing in children’s education and providing nutrition. Shared Planet is focused on climate change and reducing greenhouse gasses, total and packaging wastes, as well as water consumption. Shared business focuses on transparency in ingredient and nutrition labeling and sustainable sourcing. Shared Communities, the final segment, focuses on sustainable sourcing, transparency of ingredients and nutrition in labeling and driving out purpose throughout the brands. Hershey’s believes everyone deserves a chance at success in life. They recognize that children cannot focus on learning if they are hungry. Their partnership with many programs has allowed them to feed one million children. Hershey is proud that they provide ViVi, an energy-dense snack to 50,000 Ghanaian schoolchildren every day. It gives them the fuel they need to succeed in their education. The organization works with West Africa’s small food producers to expand their supply of nutritious foods. They also work with international experts in the food industry to provide advice and connections for local entrepreneurs. This can improve access to nutritious food across Africa.
Shared Planet promotes sustainable practices and goals. Hershey’s aims to eradicate deforestation through the planting of trees, reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, addressing future agricultural risk, eliminating waste, rethinking their packaging, and using data to constantly improve. Hershey achieved a 2.7% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, exceeding their goal of 25% by 2025. The company changed the frequency of their emissions audits from quarterly to annual. This allowed them to be more focused on their operations and to make rapid changes. They also reduced their packaging waste by 18.5million pounds. Their goal is to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 25 million pounds by 2025. This was achieved by eliminating junk mail. They have also switched to electric cars and used environmentally-friendly cleaning products throughout the company. Hershey, Mexico’s two largest natural gas conversion plants, was able to save 17.938 tons CO2 alone. At 13 of the company’s sites, there was no waste to be disposed of and their plants achieve an average recycling rate of 85%. Hershey will construct a new wastewater treatment station to help reduce the use of freshwater.
Shared Business addresses the growing consumer demand for healthier snacks with transparent labels and ingredients from more responsible sources. Hershey’s philosophy emphasizes high-quality ingredients sourced ethically and that consumers feel good about. SmartLabels will also be used on packaging. This makes it easy for consumers to find information about nutrition, ingredients, GMO status, and allergens in their favorite snacks. They also pledged to have at least half of their single-serve products contain less than 200 calories. Hershey will not do business with any company that exploits children, uses forced labor or trafficking. Hershey’s suppliers and employees must be treated with respect and dignity. They should also receive a fair wage, as per applicable law. The Concern Line is an independent organization that encourages employees to report misconduct in operations without fear of reprisal. Hershey also pledged to source 100% of its sugar from sustainable and responsible sources by 2020. To ensure compliance with the Supplier Code of Conduct, Hershey will incorporate third-party evaluations into their supply chains of Mexican sugar suppliers. 75% was also certified sustainable when they sourced their cocoa in 2017.
The Shared Community program focuses on three key areas: providing basic services, educating tomorrow’s workforce, and investing in economic and community development. The Hershey Company uses cocoa as its most important ingredient. It is therefore vital that it is available and the wellbeing of those who grow it. Hershey imports cocoa form West Africa. This has led to the company focusing on improving lives of cocoa farmers and their families as well as those of their communities. The Learn to Grow farm training program was started by The Hershey Company. This program is designed to help farmers improve their livelihoods. Hershey created a robust training infrastructure to help increase efficiency in cocoa farms. It includes one Cocoa Center, 55 demonstration plots and 989 farmer-field schools. CocoaLink, a low priced mobile technology, has been developed by Hershey. This provides information on labor and safety as well as tips for modernizing farms.
Hershey also opened a primary and secondary school in West Africa. The school’s primary classrooms are outfitted with solar-powered lighting fixtures. It also has a water supply, infirmary, and cafeteria. Sponsored meals are provided. A partnership was formed with cocoa suppliers in order to build a community-based health center in Cote d’Ivoire. This will offer basic health services like maternity facilities, laboratory testing for AIDS, malaria, and vaccines for polio and tetanus. Families in this community would have to either endure the lack of treatment or travel far to receive the necessary medical care.
