Hershey Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by AlphaStreet
February 6, 2025
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Operator

Welcome to the Hershey Company's 4th-Quarter 2024 session. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the call over to your host, Annori Naughton, Senior Director of Investor Relations for the Hershey Company. Thank you. You may begin.

Anoori Naughton
Senior Director Investor Relations at Hershey

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for the Hershey Company's 4th-quarter 2024 earnings Q&A session. I hope everyone has had the chance to read our press release and listen to our prerecorded management remarks, both of which are available on our website. In addition, we have posted a transcript of the prerecorded remarks. At the conclusion of today's live Q&A session, we will also post a transcript and audio replay of this call.

Please note that during today's Q&A session, we may make forward-looking statements that are subject to various risks and uncertainties. These statements, including expectations and assumptions regarding the company's future operations and financial performance. Actual results could differ materially from those projected. The company undertakes no obligation to update these statements based on subsequent events. A detailed listing of such risks and uncertainties can be found in today's press release and the company's SEC filings.

Finally, please note that we may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures that we believe provide useful information for investors. The presentation of this information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations for the GAAP results are included in this morning's press release. Joining me today are Hershey's Chairman and CEO, Michelle Bach; and Hershey's Senior Vice-President and CFO, Steve. With that, I will turn it over to the operator for the first question.

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Operator

Thank you. Our first question is from Andrew Lazar with Barclays. Please proceed with your question.

Andrew Lazar
Analyst at Barclays Capital

Great. Thanks so much. Good morning, everybody. Thank you. I know, Michelle, I know it's clearly way too early to get overly prescriptive at this stage on '26. But in the prepared remarks, you do mention positioning the company for balanced top and bottom-line growth in '26.

And I was really hoping you could just provide maybe just some context around this such as you know, is growth doable in '26 if Coco remains at currently elevated levels? And if so, how do you feel about the ability to take more pricing in '26 to get there even though we don't yet have a good sense for how the incremental pricing will be received by consumers for this year? I'm really just trying to put some broader parameters around this and sort of what's embedded in your comment about the potential for balanced growth in '26.

Michele G. Buck
President and Chief Executive Officer at Hershey

Yeah, got it. Hey, Steve, do you want to just take a crack at that one?

Steven E. Voskuil
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Hershey

Yeah, I'd be happy to. So as implied, when we say balanced growth, we want to eventually get EPS back on algorithm. And so as we look to '26, one of the benefits the great hedging and commodity team is we're not paying the market price, so you always have the catch-up factor relative to commodities.

But that said, just like for 2025, when we look at '26, we expect to use the full suite of levers we have to manage cocoa price and that includes looking at pricing, that includes additional productivity and CI savings, that includes continuing to drive efficiency in SG&A and even driving more return for the same dollars in some case on marketing spend.

So all of those things will be in the consideration set as we take a look at what we can do in 2026. We wouldn't expect pricing to be easy. That probably would be a conversation we'd have to have and think about internally the impact, but still 80% of our portfolio is less than $4 on the confection side. And so that would have to be one of the things we take a look at.

Andrew Lazar
Analyst at Barclays Capital

Thanks for that. And then maybe can you talk about what sort of elasticity you're seeing currently as some price has already sort of made its way into the market in 4Q? And I asked just because our understanding is that Hershey has taken a sort of a different approach to pricing this year where the company is maybe not fully line pricing across the portfolio.

And I wonder if part of not taking prices up in instant consumables is sort of a reflection of elasticity concerns or there's some other sort of strategic intent there? Thanks so much.

Michele G. Buck
President and Chief Executive Officer at Hershey

Thank you. Sure. So it's a little bit early for us to have full visibility to those results. What I'd say is what we're seeing is elasticities coming in either on par with our expectations and in some cases, slightly better. So we are carefully watching that obviously. We have a lot of confidence in our ability to price and we strategically selected where we thought it was best to do that.

And we certainly always take into account an expectation of where we think Coco will be and as we think it's going to normalize, how we factor that into the pricing decision so that we are really balancing how aggressive we go. So we will continue to monitor that, but feel-good about what we're seeing to date. Thank you.

Andrew Lazar
Analyst at Barclays Capital

Thanks so much.

Operator

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question is from Ken Goldman with J.P. Morgan. Please proceed with your question.

Kenneth A. Goldman
Analyst at JP Morgan & Co.

Hi, thank you. In your prepared remarks, you said you're prepared to adjust pricing, price pack architecture, et-cetera. If your view on commodity markets evolves, I just wanted to get a little bit more color on what that necessarily means. Is that dependent on how you view underlying supply-and-demand? Or is it really more dependent on, hey, just looking at the futures market and saying, okay, the prices are what they are, right or wrong? Just trying to get a sense of your timeline and how you think about when you might want to make that decision to adjust pricing or make other decisions around formulations and so forth.

Michele G. Buck
President and Chief Executive Officer at Hershey

So Ken, we take both of those things into account? Let me start by talking a little bit about our view on the market and then I'm going to turn it over to Steve to talk a little bit about how we balance those factors. We continue to feel-good about what we're seeing in the market fundamentals.

We're continuing to see production increase with nearly half of the production today coming from areas outside of Ivory Coast and Ghana. And we think that's really healthy for the global cocoa supply over-time. It's going to be much more diversified and that diversification is going to provide an inherent resilience just balancing weather factors and geopolitical factors, et-cetera. And we're continuing to take actions in West Africa to continue to help drive resiliency.

And as we diversify our impact, it's going to look -- it's looking different by market. We've made investments in West Africa. We will continue to do that. We've also diversified our supply sources. So we're watching those fundamentals. And certainly, that is one factor for us. At the same time, we know that fundamentals and market price aren't exactly aligned and we certainly take that into account as well. Steve, you want to talk a little bit more about that?

Steven E. Voskuil
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Hershey

Yeah, I would just say at the same time that we're -- you still see pricing in Cocoa as transient right now, we're dealing with the reality on-the-ground, which is to say we're building plans for '26. We'll be watching the cocoa market in what's happening in reality, a lot through the first-half of the year, but not waiting even for that before setting plans and again kind of touching all parts of the P&L in the event, we don't see that retrenchment so that we're ready to go for 2026. And as I said earlier, get back to an algorithm opportunity on EPS.

Michele G. Buck
President and Chief Executive Officer at Hershey

The other thing we do watch is not only what's the price on the exchange, but what's actually happening to those prices in origin and there is some differential there. And so we take that into account as well.

Kenneth A. Goldman
Analyst at JP Morgan & Co.

Okay. Understood. No, that's helpful. Thank you. And then just a quick follow-up. I think you had answered Andrew's question about what you're seeing for elasticities today. It's great to hear that they're on par or maybe in some cases, slightly better. Just curious what is baked into your guidance? And if you said this, I missed it, but how are you thinking about elasticity as more pricing unfolds throughout this year? Yeah.

Michele G. Buck
President and Chief Executive Officer at Hershey

So we've baked into our guidance historic elasticities at that minus one-level. We'll watch those because we do think that depending on factors, there could be upside, but we think that is the prudent approach for us right now.

Kenneth A. Goldman
Analyst at JP Morgan & Co.

Thank you? Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Max Gumport with BNP. Please proceed with your question.

Max Gumport
Analyst at BNP Paribas Exane

Thanks very much. I have a follow-up question on elasticities and the minus one assumption. I mean to me, it feels like this is the key unknown for '25, right? You've got Coco costs largely locked-in, pricing implemented, visibility to cost-savings pretty clear. And so could you just give a bit more color on what's informing the minus one? And if that applies to your smaller international segment too, particularly in context of a competitor talking about the elasticity level in '25, that would be much more favorable. Thanks very much. Thank you.

Michele G. Buck
President and Chief Executive Officer at Hershey

So we do see upside if elasticities come in better. We again think that it is a prudent stance to take as we work-through the volatile consumer marketplace and some of the pressures that we know exist for consumers. And we have also considered greater elasticities in international in the outlook. We are not the market-leader in many of those markets, so not always leading those price increases. So we take a different stance relative to our approach there. I mean, it's a smaller piece of our business, obviously, so it doesn't have nearly as big of an impact, but we do look at it differently.

Max Gumport
Analyst at BNP Paribas Exane

Great. Great. Thanks very much. And then staying on international, realize it is a smaller segment, but you had a very strong 4Q with broad-based strength across your markets. So the commentary of low-single-digit growth was heightened competitive activity in '25 stood out to me. Can you talk a bit more about what the competitive activity is you're seeing in those markets where it's more pronounced and how you expect to manage through it? Thanks very much.

Steven E. Voskuil
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Hershey

Sure. Yeah, the 4th-quarter was strong. They were helped a little bit by a favorable lap, and we also have some big Black Friday performance in a couple of markets where that was a big holiday. So strong performance there. When you look at the totality of last year, the business was up about a point. So I'm more on-balance. The '25 outlook doesn't look as different.

We saw, I would say, the highest competitive activity in Brazil and Mexico. Brazil, in particular was very intense, a lot of promotion. We had a lot of innovation in-market in those markets and that helped certainly in the 4th-quarter. But again, as we look kind of at the totality of 2025, we expect to see that competition increase and that's really what's informing the growth there.

Max Gumport
Analyst at BNP Paribas Exane

Thank you. Thanks very much.

Steven E. Voskuil
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Hershey

Pass it on.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Robert Moscow with TD Cowen. Please proceed with your question.

Robert Moskow
Analyst at TD Cowen

Hi, thanks for the question. Steve, I think I'll just ask about phasing. Do you expect your gross margin pressure to be pretty even throughout the quarters? And-or in 4th-quarter, are you -- are you fully covered for 4th-quarter or will they -- will there be like another hit in 4th-quarter when hedges roll-over?

Steven E. Voskuil
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Hershey

Yeah, sure. So for the full-year, we're nearly completely covered on Coco. And so we don't expect a big hit -- maybe kind of new hit from the outlook in the 4th-quarter. As you look at the split of gross margin, we're going to have less gross margin pressure in the first-half where will be based on our hedging less probably in the neighborhood of under 500 basis-points. And as we get to the back-half, we'll see more impact. Those hedge positions are going to be higher price just based on the flow of Coco. So definitely more in the back-half than the first-half. Okay. Okay. And just a quick follow-up for Michelle. Michelle, are you seeing your competitors take similar actions on pricing? You've been very strategic about where you're going to take it. It doesn't sound like you're taking it in instant consumables yet. Do you -- have -- have you seen similar actions or are there some discrepancies out there?.

Michele G. Buck
President and Chief Executive Officer at Hershey

I guess I'd say, overall, I think the category is very rational and we have seen most major players taking pricing, including private-label, which has also taken pretty aggressive pricing as well. I'd say that pricing has probably been a bit more broad-based, though people tend to cycle through parts of their portfolio as they see appropriate. And price 60% at one-time and then go to the next piece. We know that we've tried to be just considerate of pressure in certain channels, but nothing is off the table for us. We are continuously evaluating the entire portfolio.

Robert Moskow
Analyst at TD Cowen

Okay, got it. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Alexia Howard with Bernstein. Please proceed with your question.

Alexia Howard
Analyst at Sanford Bernstein

Good morning, everyone.

Michele G. Buck
President and Chief Executive Officer at Hershey

Good morning.

Alexia Howard
Analyst at Sanford Bernstein

Okay. So first of all, can I just ask on the sales outlook for 2025, it's obviously fairly muted compared to the strong performance this time around. Is that mainly due to the conservative price elasticity assumption or are there other puts and takes in there?.

Michele G. Buck
President and Chief Executive Officer at Hershey

So I'd say a couple -- a couple of things. International was a bit more pressured than we would normally see in our growth algorithm. So that certainly played a role. We're certainly taking into account the volatility in the marketplace. We do anticipate that our consumption will be a bit stronger than shipments due to primarily to retailer inventory in North-America confection. And so that's playing a role as well. Well in addition, one fewer shipping day. And we do have some commercial activations that are really coming into play closer to the back-half of the year. But those are the key components.

Alexia Howard
Analyst at Sanford Bernstein

Follow-up. Can I come back to the topic or not on this call to the topic of GLP-1s, which have come up in the past. Are you seeing any material impact at the moment? How are you measuring it? And what's the strategy here as that plays out over-time? Thank you, and I'll pass it on.

Michele G. Buck
President and Chief Executive Officer at Hershey

Yeah, so we are seeing no material impacts. And we are continuously looking externally to get and evaluate data. We have triangulated both external and internal evidence, including some of the most recent studies like the recent Cornell enumerator studies and they tend to validate our internal views.

And we have multiple data sources that also support our view that users of the drugs do not eat disproportionately less of our categories. We do know that there's a broader shift in consumer preference for healthier items that has been underway for some time, items that have nutritional claims around blue sugar and other things. And we will continue to evolve our portfolio as we continue to track what's important to consumers you.

Steven E. Voskuil
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Hershey

Next question.

Michele G. Buck
President and Chief Executive Officer at Hershey

Hello,

Steven E. Voskuil
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Hershey

Operator?

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Peter Galbo with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.

Peter Grom
Analyst at UBS Securities

Hey, hey, good morning, Michelle and Steve. Thanks for the questions. Steve, maybe just a follow-up on phasing on-top line. I know you gave color on 1Q and 2Q the prepared remarks, but I think there was a comment you just actually just made to Alexi's question around the back-half of the year, 4Q maybe has one less day. Just want to make sure we have all the moving parts on-top line as we think about bridging to the 2% given there's some wonkiness in the comps.

Steven E. Voskuil
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Hershey

Sure. Yeah, 1/4 -- the first-quarter has two fewer shipping days. 4th-quarter has one. And so they have one extra. And so net-net, you're one day short for the full-year. Again, pretty minor between those two between first-half and second-half. But overall in the second-half, we'd expect low single-digit growth.

Peter Grom
Analyst at UBS Securities

Okay. Got it. Helpful. And then, Michelle, maybe if I could switch gears. There's commentary about being able to participate in the downside of cocoa markets do fall given your risk caps. You spoke a little bit about, you know, I believe off -- off-exchange mechanisms you're seeing some of the competitors are doing. There's been some reporting about maybe your own activities that have been outside of the norm.

So just wanted to get a deeper understanding of kind of what you're seeing from that perspective, what instruments you're seeing yourselves and your competitors using? And maybe if you can also comment just on your own activity and that's maybe been outside the norm. Thanks very much.

Michele G. Buck
President and Chief Executive Officer at Hershey

So right now we are seeing very low commercial participation -- participation on the exchange. And you know, yes, we have been looking at alternatives and options of how we approach our Coco supply-chain. And our focus is really there has been an opportunity to get lower prices in origin versus on the exchange, and we're trying to be very opportunistic about how we approach this whole area and take advantage of the market dislocations in a place that we see that we can come in a bit differently. Steve, anything you would add to that?

Steven E. Voskuil
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Hershey

No, I think we won't get more specific on the types of instruments, but market dislocations sometimes present opportunities. And so we want to make sure we're looking everywhere we can for opportunities.

Peter Grom
Analyst at UBS Securities

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Todd Palmer with Citi. Please proceed with your question.

Thomas Palmer
Analyst at Smith Barney Citigroup

Good morning and thanks for the question. Maybe just starting out, we could circle back to the elasticity assumption. I just want to make sure that I have kind of the starting point, right, when you talk about minus one, it would be without pricing, I guess, what level of growth roughly do you assume as a starting point and then the elasticity starts to trigger? And I guess when we think about this coming year, Is it different as a starting point than maybe you would have in your long-term algorithm or relatively normal?

Michele G. Buck
President and Chief Executive Officer at Hershey

Okay. So I would say it is -- you know, it's largely similar to how we approach it. I mean, we always say we look at the impact of pricing and there is a volume conversion curve that you go on once you price and then we build back up from there relative to the programming that we have to unlock growth and consumption on the brand. And we do that on a pack-by-pack and a retailer by retailer, brand-by-brand.

And that's really what helps to get us to what that number looks like. So that's how we derive it. The Long Easter helps us this year as somewhat of a starting point. But those programs that we on-top allow us to get better than that minus one.

Thomas Palmer
Analyst at Smith Barney Citigroup

Understood. Thanks for that. And then just in the prepared remarks, there was referenced to a timing benefit in the 4th-quarter related to inventory valuation. Just any help quantifying this? And then what drove this and whether this has any impact on 2025 at all?

Steven E. Voskuil
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Hershey

Yeah. Yeah, the impact was about $40 million and it's really related to our new ERP system, which has a much finer allocation of cost between inventory and the P&L based on what we sell. And so it's sort of a better system. With that system and that precision comes a little bit more variability. So as we go through the quarters, we may see a little bit more of that movement than we had in the past. But it's not going to be material and I wouldn't -- we're not setting our models differently based on that.

Thomas Palmer
Analyst at Smith Barney Citigroup

Okay. Thank you. Sure. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Jim with Stephens. Please proceed with your question.

Jim Salera
Analyst at Stephens

Thank you. Guys, thanks for taking our question. Michelle, in the prepared remarks, you called out acceleration on the suites portfolio and some successes with the and Rancher. Just in thinking about the drivers of potential upside on the portfolio. Can you maybe talk about innovation on the non-chocolate portion of the portfolio and how that will play into some of the advertising efforts you have rolling out this year?

Michele G. Buck
President and Chief Executive Officer at Hershey

Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. So as you know, in Q3, we launched in the marketplace a lot of new innovation, including Jolly Rancher innovation, heightened support, shackalicious gummies and then in Q4, we actually purchased sour strips. So all of those things on suites were new as of kind of mid to late Q3 into the balance of the year. So as you look at the year of '25, we're going to get a carryover benefit, a pretty strong carryover benefit from those items. In addition to that, we have also recently launched JR freeze-dried and that's hit the marketplace.

So that is new news on innovation and suites for this year. And we have new news coming later this year that we haven't yet announced and then we obviously have distribution and velocity opportunities on sour strips as well. So we have a continued nice lineup of continued news and opportunity on suites as we enter the year and go through the year?

Jim Salera
Analyst at Stephens

Okay. Great. And then when you have your conversations with retail partners on expanding the suite selection, is that often incremental space that you didn't have before or is it kind of swapping pieces of the chocolate for suites, especially in like the immediate consumption occasion, cash ramp and we're in those areas?

Michele G. Buck
President and Chief Executive Officer at Hershey

Yes. So we under-index in suites. We are underdeveloped. So for us, it is an opportunity to be gaining incremental distribution, incremental consumer occasions. So we do look at that as helping us in that way. It also helps us with our seasons portfolio where we're already quite strong, but being able to get some of these innovative suites components into seasons is a new opportunity there as well.

Jim Salera
Analyst at Stephens

Thank you. Great. Appreciate the color. I'll pass it on.

Operator

Thank you. Thank you. Our next question is from Leah Jordan with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question.

Leah Jordan
Analyst at The Goldman Sachs Group

Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I wanted to ask about the market-share declines in everyday chocolate that you noted in the prepared remarks. First, curious how that trended versus last quarter and throughout the quarter. And then as you think about potential drivers for improvement going-forward, how much do you think is dependent on an improvement just in the cyclical impulse in the C-store channel versus the need to drive bigger innovation like you're planning because competition and newness has just been intensified from smaller players.

Michele G. Buck
President and Chief Executive Officer at Hershey

Sure. So I'd say the everyday is getting better. We have significant improvement with suites and we've also seen significant improvement in take-home. Some of those improvements were driven by strength in the category. And certainly as we lapped some of the retailer specific pressures that we had the prior year and then we lapped through those and got back to a normalized position relative to distribution and merch.

That was very helpful. Innovation is an important lever, and we are looking across each of our pack types to make sure that we've got that right innovation as there in -- as there is increased competition for shelf-space, having the right innovation within each pack type is incredibly important. So we have dialed up some of the innovation levels and take-home this year and we think that will result in TDPs and growth.

Next year really the share outlook is driven by continued acceleration in suites, continued strength in seasons and improvement in every day. We do have the biggest innovation that we have had ever on Reese coming to the marketplace and so more news to come on that later this year and we'll continue to work with our commercial partners to improve trends in the instant consumable business. That's an area of the portfolio that is driven by some of these macro pressures and the consumer pressure, particularly in convenience store class of trade.

So it's a little bit of downward category pressure there. We see more momentum and upside on the other areas, but we continue to focus on share there as well.

Leah Jordan
Analyst at The Goldman Sachs Group

That's very helpful. Thank you. And then maybe just following-up on that C-store discussion. It sounded like last quarter, you were going to invest more in variety of brands and lean into your gold standard planogram. So it sounded like the channel is still soft, but are you starting to see any improvement as you kind of implement those plans. Thank you.

Michele G. Buck
President and Chief Executive Officer at Hershey

So we have seen improvement. On our variety portfolio, we saw improvements by about three points in our trends from Q3 to Q4. And they are still pressured, but we are seeing some significant improvement and we are in the process of ramping-up that gold standard. So that takes some time to implement.

So you sell it in. It does require a reset by the retailers. And so we are continuing to monitor that, but I have a lot of confidence based on the places where we've tested that, it has, you know, provided 2x the impact as the old planogram. So we're confident in those lifts and we'll continue to see those hit the marketplace as we as we progress through the year, more of that upside will come closer to midyear into the second-half.

Leah Jordan
Analyst at The Goldman Sachs Group

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Michael Laver with Piper Sandler. Please proceed with your question.

Michael Lavery
Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies

Thank you. Good morning. You mentioned in -- you mentioned in your prepared remarks, you're seeing Coco end-users adapting through reformulation. Could you maybe touch on what exactly you're seeing there and if you are reformulating yourselves as well?

Steven E. Voskuil
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Hershey

So we have over the last several years always looking at where there may be some opportunities on formulation, but it's critically important we maintain the taste profile and the specialness of our iconic brands. And so it's a place we look at, we test. And in some parts of our portfolio, over-time, we've made some changes. We'll continue to look in that space.

And I would say in all the changes that we've made thus far, there has been no consumer impact whatsoever. As you can imagine, even on the smallest brand in the portfolio, if we were to make a change as extensive consumer testing. So it's an area we look at, at, but we definitely want to make sure that we're focused on the consumer.

Michele G. Buck
President and Chief Executive Officer at Hershey

We have been seeing some increased global demand across the market for cocoa alternatives. So we are seeing some -- some folks who are pressured and who perhaps have the opportunity to switch to Coco Butter alternatives. Obviously, we're -- we do that where possible, but we're pretty precious about the brands and what they stand for with consumers. But that. Yeah, it does create some demand destruction in the Market as we see others do that.

Michael Lavery
Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies

Okay, got it. And you touched on something I don't think you've mentioned before, which is the potential for cellular agriculture being a long-term solution. Is that -- how far on the horizon, how far off is that? Is that something to kind of consider as a potential substitute or how should we just think about what role, if any of that may play over the next, say, few years?

Michele G. Buck
President and Chief Executive Officer at Hershey

It's something we're watching very closely. I don't think it is necessarily near-term, but I think it can be a game-changer and it's certainly getting a lot of investment right now. So I think it's something to watch.

Michael Lavery
Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies

Thank you. Okay. Thanks so much. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Chris Carrey with Wells Fargo Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Chris Carey
Analyst at Wells Fargo & Company

Hey, good morning, everyone. Just first, Steve, the implied gross margin for Q1, I think it's like 41% and maybe roughly 35% for the remainder of the year. Is it fair to assume that the core differential there is Coco inflation or are there other considerations that we should be thinking about.

Steven E. Voskuil
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Hershey

Yeah, we'll be -- for the first-half, we'll be down less than 500 basis-points more than that like we talked about earlier in the second-half. And yes, the answer to your question, Coco is really the biggest component. The inflation in the other areas, some of the other commodities, but also labor and warehousing and so forth, those things are more evenly paced over the year.

Chris Carey
Analyst at Wells Fargo & Company

Okay. Okay. Okay, great. And then Michelle, obviously, you announced plans to transition out of your role, which is exciting. Can you maybe provide any more color or just context on the search process, timing and the sorts of capabilities that you would be looking for as an organization? Thanks so much.

Michele G. Buck
President and Chief Executive Officer at Hershey

Sure. So we've had a framework for long-term succession in-place always as companies always do. Now that I have announced a firm date for my retirement, the search practice or the search process is actively underway and that is appropriate. And we will conduct a very robust search process led by a search committee on the Board.

And certainly, we will be recognizing and paying attention to the fast evolving industry and world that we are all living in and experiencing today and being very selective to -- to bring on-board somebody who has the right skills, experience, qualifications and people focus to allow us to win during this environment. So I'm confident we will find the right successor and I'm working closely with the Board on that to ensure the right selection and a seamless transition. But I am absolutely 100% laser-focused in the interim on delivering this '25 plan, continuing to execute our transformation and making sure I'm positioning the company for our next phase of growth.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Rob Dickerson with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

Rob Dickerson
Analyst at Jefferies Financial Group

Great. Thanks so much. I guess just around '26, maybe just a question more for Steve. Michelle, you can chime in. I guess the question of what I'm hearing today is that hopefully the price of comes down, maybe mid crop comes in okay, supply-demand dynamics start to settle, maybe demand weakens a little bit, so it kind of pulls it down. And I think the direct comment or the line in the prepared remarks, right, that then hopefully as you get to '26, you can get kind of more balanced top and bottom-line growth.

But then, Steve, we kind of heard you also kind of mentioned on algo. So I'm just trying to gauge a little bit better like how you kind of feel out '26, right? Is it like, yeah, clearly if Coco comes down a bunch, then our earnings can go up a bunch.

And if it comes down some, then really what we're hoping for is more on algo growth, right, because once you have a year like this year such that absolute earnings are so-far down, you know, to me kind of a core question is, okay, we could be back on algo growth, but is there kind of a scenario that has some decent probability around it such that you could be like way above on algo growth and you kind of try to get back more of those absolute earnings? That's all I have. Thanks so much.

Steven E. Voskuil
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Hershey

Sure. Yeah. So we see a path even at these cocoa prices to EPS growth for '26, again, on the back of some aggressive actions that we talked about earlier that we're framing for execution depending on what we see, particularly in the first-half of this year. And then I think there's an opportunity for outsized growth. We get some help from Coco and we see Coco start to backtrack.

So those are kind of our operating assumptions. That's what we mean when we say on -- or when we say that we want to see balanced growth for next year. That's what we're shooting for.

Rob Dickerson
Analyst at Jefferies Financial Group

Okay. Okay, okay. And then makes sense. And then I guess just quickly, while I fully respect that you, I don't think ever talk about your hedging practices. Is it fair to assume that kind of like where Coco sits today, right, that maybe you kind of give it a little bit more time before you start to really actively hedge '26.

And I think you kind of kind of vaguely touched on that, right? We'll see kind of how it plays out. But if you do think it comes down, like my assumption would be you kind of wait a bit before you start to hedge. Thank you.

Steven E. Voskuil
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Hershey

Yeah, we can't comment too much on the timing of the plan for '26 hedging for competitive reasons. But we've got a great team. They're very close to what's happening in the cocoa markets and what's happening on-exchange, off-exchange and other innovative solutions. And so we're going to continue to take advantage of that. We've got the best cocoa traders out there working this. So we're going to leave it in their hands and we'll get more information as the year progresses.

Rob Dickerson
Analyst at Jefferies Financial Group

All right, Super. See you in Florida. Thank you.

Steven E. Voskuil
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Hershey

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from John Baumgartner with Mizuho Securities. Please proceed with your question.

John Baumgartner
Analyst at Mizuho Securities

Good morning. Thanks for the question. Michelle. Good morning. I wanted to come back to Alexi's question on the US chocolate category specifically. And in 2024, volume was down about 5% and that was a little bit worse than 2023, even though pricing in 2024 was about half the magnitude.

And it sounds as though the GLP ones are not a big driver, but that health and wellness may still be having some impact, I guess, independently. So how would you bucket the factors driving chocolate declines at this point between health and wellness, any shift into non-chocolate confection versus savory snacks or maybe just outright demand destruction from prices. It feels like there's a lot going on simultaneously.

Michele G. Buck
President and Chief Executive Officer at Hershey

Yes. So I'd say there is a lot going on. So I would start and say, if I think about the broad confection category, first of all, suites has really been a high-growth area. So there's been some mix that's been evolving there. Suites delivers on a different pallet experience, sweets has a value component to it. So that's been one factor impacting the overall category and certainly having an impact on chocolate.

And that's been in-place for a while that's been a longer trend, but continues to be there. I think we've seen a lot of channel evolution. So there's been some pressure in some of the primary channels where a lot of chocolate is sold to areas like convenience and then there's been some growth in some of the unmeasured channels that have traditionally not been as strong across mainstream chocolate. And so we're shifting our focus is to really accommodate that.

And the overall category growth is really strong in those places and that's an opportunity for us and also, I think for the category. I think the consumer focus on health and wellness is also a continuation. I don't see it as a massive change and certainly, we're seeing really nice growth on our zero sugar line of products and also our protein line of products, both of which we put a heightened focus on growing and we see a lot of opportunity on those going-forward.

John Baumgartner
Analyst at Mizuho Securities

Thank you. Thanks, Michelle,

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from David Palmer with Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your question.

David Palmer
Analyst at Evercore ISI

Thanks. Good morning, guys. I wanted to ask you about maybe some big-picture growth bucket questions. I mean, primarily, I'm curious about seasons and how you're thinking about that this year. It's been a greater area for growth and some tough comparisons maybe have been lapped at this point from COVID. I'm wondering how you're sort of budgeting and forecasting seasons as a grower this year. And then if there's any other commentary from a channel perspective about how you're thinking this year might play-out, convenience Stores also had sort of a post-COVID lack of recovery that I think was notable and I'm wondering how you're thinking about that channel and any other insights? Thanks.

Michele G. Buck
President and Chief Executive Officer at Hershey

Yes. So we're expecting strength in seasons this year. We've been pretty consistently doing very well during seasons. I think there's a very strong emotional component with consumers that makes them want to participate in seasons regardless of what may be going on in the macro-environment and they love their brands that have part of -- been part of their traditions and rituals over the years with their families. This year, Easter is advantaged being a late Easter.

So that elongates the season and we expect strong growth. We expect to gain share there. And we also continue to believe that we'll do well in the other seasons. As you know, performance in the prior year in a season helps to set-up success in the following year and we feel-good about what we delivered in the seasons this year that give us a good foundation as well going into '25?

David Palmer
Analyst at Evercore ISI

Any comment on convenience as a channel? And do you think that, that will be in-line with your forecast broadly or what's your thoughts there?

Michele G. Buck
President and Chief Executive Officer at Hershey

Yeah. I think that convenience will absolutely be in-line with our forecast. We are continuing to forecast some pressure in that channel until we see it stabilize more. So we'll lap some parts of that pressure. So that will be a help lapping it about the summer timeframe. So continued softness until we see that lap.

David Palmer
Analyst at Evercore ISI

That makes sense. Thanks very much.

Michele G. Buck
President and Chief Executive Officer at Hershey

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. This does conclude our question-and-answer session. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation

Corporate Executives
  • Anoori Naughton
    Senior Director Investor Relations
  • Michele G. Buck
    President and Chief Executive Officer
  • Steven E. Voskuil
    Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
Analysts

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