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The Chocolate Industry At The Hershey Company

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The industry that I chose is the chocolate industry. Growing up in Pennsylvania the Hershey Company is well know throughout the state and is a factory I have visited on multiple occasions. While the chocolate tycoon has made some negative headlines over the past few years with outsourcing and layoffs, they have done a good share of philanthropy work for the state and the Dauphin County area. The chocolate industry operates in an oligopoly market. An oligopoly is when a small number of firms dominate the market. While not a quite a monopoly, an oligopoly market is still controlled by a select number of companies and the market can be directly impacted by one or two major firms (Oligopoly Investopedia). Hershey’s has control of the largest market share, holding 44.4% (U.S Market Share). Mars Incorporated follows behind in second by holding 28.9%. While these two companies hold much of the control and power within the industry, LIndt/Ghirardelli and Nestlé maintain a combined share of 15.1% of the industry’s market. This means that four companies hold a combined 88.4% of the market, with two of them holding a combined 73.3%. The market was not always this way however. Up through the 1960s many candy suppliers were regional. The transportation cost of chocolate was high and small mom and pop stores commonly supplied chocolate made locally. Today you would be hard-pressed to find local chocolate in the United States, with the shelves dominated by four major brands. The

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