Kristen Riggs, who handles SkinnyPop popcorn and Dot’s pretzels, says the 129-year-old firm is growing in size and market share as it transforms into a key player in sweet and salty snacks.
Kristin Riggs is reminded of the company’s rich beginnings in sweets every day as she walks to her Hershey office: The street lamps are decked with huge Hershey Kisses covering the light bulbs, and the roads are named Chocolate Avenue and Cocoa Avenue. Her office is located in the original Milton Hershey plant, which was constructed in 1905.
Nevertheless, as president of the 129-year-old company’s fast-growing salty snacks segment, Riggs concentrates her emphasis on pretzels, puffs, and popcorn in an attempt to mimic Hershey’s success with legendary sweet brands such as Reese’s and chocolate bars.
“This is truly a watershed moment for the company.” “We’re developing Hershey as both a sweet and a salty company right now,” Riggs said in an interview ahead of an event this week at the firm’s headquarters in Pennsylvania to describe its salty snacks plan to Wall Street analysts. “This is a new era for Hershey. It’s an exciting time because we’re returning to our roots as creators, builders, and inventors.”
Hershey has long been recognized for its confectionary portfolio, which produced $8.5 billion in sales in 2022. Nevertheless, under Michele Buck’s guidance as CEO since 2017, Hershey has converted itself into a “snacking behemoth” by going all in on a series of acquisitions to develop a dominant position in the $36 billion salty snack industry.
Hershey paid $1.6 billion to acquire Amplify, the parent company of SkinnyPop popcorn, in 2017, the biggest transaction in the firm’s history. A year later, it purchased Pirate’s Booty cheese puffs, and in 2021, it paid $1.2 billion for fast-growing Dot’s Homestyle Pretzels and its Midwest co-manufacturer Pretzels Inc.
The purchases gave Hershey “one of the strongest snacking portfolios” in the salty category, according to Riggs, and transformed the division into a key revenue generator, accounting for around 10% of the company’s more than $10 billion in annual sales. Within a decade, Hershey hopes to increase its salty snacks segment to around 20% of the company’s revenues, or about $3 billion. “It is amazing how quickly we’ve gone from zero to 10% of sales and getting to the point of scale,” Riggs said. “We really have hit our stride.”