The Hershey Company (NYSE:HSY) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Steve Voskuil : Yeah, it’s a fair question. There have been a lot of movements across the quarters. I think, think about run rate in the mid teens. That’s probably a good baseline to operate from let’s say. There will still be movement across the quarters, probably, especially as we look to the back half of this year with that ERP transition that we talked about. As we get further into the year we will give more color to some of that variability. But if you think about mid-teens, that’s probably a good starting spot.

John Baumgartner : Okay, thank you very much.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from line of Jonathan Feeney with Consumer Edge. Please proceed with your question.

Jonathan Feeney: Good morning. Thanks very much. So it’s been about 15 points or so over the past two years of pricing. And I was wondering if you could characterize — I know that’s data driven. But I wonder if you characterize how much of that was driven by this narrative about rising costs and if costs continue to moderate or even decline, should we expect some — is the expectation from the retailer that some of that pricing goes away if costs go down, or has this just all been a change in the conversation to let’s work together to grow the category? Just curious about how much risk do you have, if cost in fact start to moderate or decline? Thank you.

Steve Voskuil : Sure.

Michele Buck : No, we always work together with retailers to try and maximize category growth. That is our fundamental premise, especially being leaders in all of the categories that we are in. If the category is growing, we feel really good that we will benefit from that growth. Historically, there hasn’t really been a move in the category to execute price declines or price rollbacks. As prices kind of have gone up, they have tended to stick in the marketplace, as a matter of principle of how that category dynamics have worked. And what we really try and do is to leverage some of that favorability in price in our holistic model, to reinvest for growth, whether that’s reinvesting in capabilities to get smarter about managing the shelf with the retailer, helping them to find new points of interruption, or whether that is incremental consumer investment.

Jonathan Feeney: Makes sense? Thank you.

Steve Voskuil : Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our question and answer session. I’ll turn the floor back to Ms. Poole for any final comments.

Melissa A. Poole : Thank you so much for joining us this morning. We will be available for any follow-up questions you have. Have a great day.

Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.