While October is still months away, it’s never too early to start thinking about spooky season. Just last week, the Hershey Company said they are already expecting to fall short on the production for seasonal candy this Halloween.
This shortfall is due to several factors, but Covid-19-induced supply chain issues coupled with the war in Ukraine had the most significant impact. The affected supplies of cocoa, edible oil, and other key ingredients needed to make Hershey’s signature treats. So the company decided to focus its resources more on keeping staple, non-holiday, items on shelves. Meaning their annual Halloween- and possibly Christmas- specific snacks may be scarce this year.
“Seasonal consumer engagement is expected to remain high, and we expect high single-digit sales growth for both our Halloween and Holiday seasons. Despite this strong growth, we will not be able to fully meet consumer demand due to capacity constraints,” President and CEO of the Hershey Company Michele Buck said.
Hershey’s also says they have had a “tremendous increase in consumer demand over the past few years,” which may also contribute to shortages. Their second-quarter financial results for this year have even shown consolidated net sales of $2,372.6 million, which is a 19.3% increase. Despite these anticipated supply issues, there will actually be more seasonal candy this Halloween than there was in 2021. This was another key factor in the company’s focus on stocking everyday staples over seasonal ones.
“That was a choice that we needed to make. We had opportunity to deliver more Halloween, but we weren’t able to supply that. We were really producing — we begin producing Halloween back in the Spring, and that’s really when we needed to make these key decisions on what we were going to produce,” Buck said during the same phone call.
So basically you’ll probably be able to get a Reese’s peanut butter cup, it just may not be pumpkin shaped.
