The Hershey Company - Earnings Call - Q1 2025 [Q&A]

Executive Summary

• Q1 2025 net sales fell 13.8% to $2,805.4M and adjusted diluted EPS declined 31.9% to $2.09 amid higher cocoa/manufacturing costs and derivative mark-to-market losses; reported diluted EPS was $1.10.
• Results modestly exceeded Wall Street consensus: adjusted EPS $2.09 vs $1.93 consensus and revenue $2,805.4M vs $2,793.5M; EBITDA missed the $668.1M consensus with actual $509.9M, reflecting margin compression and commodity headwinds (values marked with asterisks from S&P Global)*.
• 2025 guidance reiterated: net sales growth at least 2%; reported EPS down high-40% range; adjusted EPS down mid-30% range. The company only included Q2 tariff expense ($15–$20M) in guidance and highlighted potential unmitigated H2 tariff impact up to ~$100M per quarter, with mitigation actions forthcoming.
• Salty Snacks performance was a bright spot (net sales +1%, margin +100 bps), with SkinnyPop and Dot’s gaining share; seasonal sweets consumption remained strong. Dividend declared: $1.370 (Common), $1.245 (Class B), payable June 16, 2025.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Salty Snacks resilience: net sales +1.0% and segment margin +100 bps to 15.1% on productivity, favorable mix, and transformation savings; SkinnyPop share +190 bps and Dot’s pretzel share +337 bps.
• Seasonal/sweets momentum: management noted “consumption exceeded our expectations in both U.S. Candy, Mint, and Gum and Salty Snacks,” driven by seasons, sweets, Dot’s and SkinnyPop.
• SG&A discipline: selling, marketing and administrative expenses -9.6%; advertising -14.2% YoY, reflecting timing and transformation savings.

What Went Wrong

• Gross margin compression: reported GM 33.7% (-1,780 bps YoY) and adjusted GM 41.2% (-370 bps), driven by derivative mark-to-market losses, higher commodity/manufacturing costs, unfavorable mix, and lower volumes.
• Volume headwinds: organic volume/mix -15 pts total; -18 pts in North America Confectionery, impacted by lapping ERP-related inventory build, later Easter, and two fewer shipping days.
• Higher tax rate and mark-to-market: reported effective tax rate rose to 30.7% (+1,160 bps YoY), while derivative mark-to-market losses reduced comparability; non-GAAP EPS uplift from adjustments totaled $0.99 per diluted share.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Greetings and welcome to The Hershey Company's First Quarter 2025 Question and Answer Session. If you'd like to join the question queue, please press star one on your telephone keypad. 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, Anoori Naughton, Senior Director of Investor Relations for The Hershey Company. Thank you. You may begin.

Anoori Naughton (VP of Investor Relations)

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for The Hershey Company's first quarter 2025 earnings Q&A session. I hope everyone has had the chance to read our press release and listen to our pre-recorded management remarks, both of which are available on our website. In addition, we have posted a transcript of the pre-recorded 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 financials, 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 metrics 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, Michele Buck, and Hershey's Senior Vice President and CFO, Steve Voskuil.

With that, I will turn it over to the operator for the first question.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Once again, as a reminder, it is star one to join the question queue. We ask that you please ask one question and one follow-up. Our first question comes from the line of Ken Goldman with J.P. Morgan. Please proceed with your question.

Ken Goldman (Managing Director)

Hi, thank you. I appreciate the help on your 2Q tariff expense. Just appreciating the fluidity of the situation and that you're taking some mitigating actions, including trying to get an exemption. Is there a rough way for investors to think about the risk ahead if an exemption doesn't immediately come through? I guess I'm trying to quantify what might not be currently quantifiable, but I guess any help in thinking about the level of risk in 3Q and 4Q, might help to diminish some of the uncertainty on the stock.

Michele Buck (CEO)

Steven, you want to take that one?

Steve Voskuil (CFO)

You bet. Thanks for the question, Ken. Yeah, so for Q2, I think we have enough clarity to share that 15%-20%, as you'd expect. We've got a lot of inventories, so that mitigates some of the impact for Q2. As we look to the back half, as you said, I'll start by saying it changes constantly, and that's part of the reason for not sharing it in the release. If we look at the unmitigated impact for Q3 and Q4, and of course, we are going to mitigate. We'll talk more about that in a minute. The unmitigated impact could be up to $100 million per quarter, for quarter three and quarter four. If you break that down, 2/3 of it are either cocoa or the Canadian retaliatory tariffs.

Those are the two areas where, as you can imagine, we've got the most effort focused on influencing government action, using every lever at our disposal to get those tariffs changed, particularly with respect to cocoa. That is the impact of unmitigated. As we've talked about in the past, we're going to use, aside from the lobbying and the influencing and so forth, every lever in the toolbox for whatever amount of tariffs remain as we go forward in the back half of the year. We will be in a position to share more specifics about those actions as we kind of get to the mid-year mark. As we've said before, I'd say all of the levers are on the table as we look at mitigating both cocoa and that incremental tariff component.

Michele Buck (CEO)

Yeah, can I just add, all that work is well underway, exploring every lever: productivity, pricing, sourcing, manufacturing changes, all of that.

Ken Goldman (Managing Director)

Got it. Okay, that's very clear. Thank you. A quick follow-up. You said to expect 2Q EPS to decline by less than 1Q, just on the Easter season timing and some ERP reversals. 1Q was down, obviously, pretty heavily, over 30%, but the Street's modeling 2Q down less than 2%. Again, I know there's some uncertainty here, but how would you like us to think about the magnitude of that decline, just in light of some of the tailwinds and headwinds you mentioned?

Steve Voskuil (CFO)

Yeah, so I'll give you a couple of things. In total, for the first half, we expect EPS to be down about 30%. If you kind of take the full-year guide at down mid-30s, it also implies the back half probably down about 40%. If we go a little bit deeper on the second quarter, as you mentioned, the net sales side will be very strong with the long Easter, the lack of the deload last year with the ERP change. For the second quarter, we expect gross margin to be down about 700 basis points, and that includes that small tariff component that I mentioned earlier. We also expect SG&A dollars will be up meaningfully. Part of that is last year, we did not spend much on marketing and so on as we came out of the ERP transformation.

You can expect that this year we'll have quite high team year-over-year SG&A growth in the second quarter, just reflecting that bigger lap. Gross margin was probably the biggest change relative to the Q2 outlook. As you mentioned, there's some noise there with the new ERP system and basically how we manage commodity costs to the P&L across the quarters. On a full-year basis, it has no impact.

Ken Goldman (Managing Director)

Thanks so much. I appreciate it.

Steve Voskuil (CFO)

You bet.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Lazar with Barclays. Please proceed with your question.

Andrew Lazar (Managing Director)

Great. Thanks so much. Last quarter in the prepared remarks, you mentioned an outlook for balanced top and bottom line growth in 2026. In the call last quarter, I think you mentioned an expectation for earnings growth next year, even at current cocoa levels. In today's prepared remarks, you do mention some actions that you'll take next year, but do not go as far as to discuss earnings next year. I am just curious if your thinking on that front has changed.

Steve Voskuil (CFO)

Yeah, I would say our thinking hasn't changed. We still see a path to earnings growth next year, even with tariffs as we currently understand them. Now, I will say in the next breath, that path is narrower. It's more challenging, and it's going to point to the importance of the mitigation of the actions that we're going to take as we get further into this year. We still see a path to earnings growth next year in that balanced growth formula for 2026.

Andrew Lazar (Managing Director)

Got it. Okay, thank you for that. I know your pricing actions this year have been a bit more nuanced, right, in an effort to sort of gain some incremental shelf placements, maybe especially in the instant consumable space. I'm curious if you're seeing any benefits there as of yet. If so, how do you, I guess, or how should we think about the progress you expect on market share as a result of that, specifically in CMG in the coming quarters? Thank you.

Michele Buck (CEO)

Sure. Andrew, thanks for the question. I guess a couple of components of that. First of all, if we think about instant consumable, we have seen already some improvements in trips in C-stores. January and February were the worst months. We started to see a little bit of moderation. In April, we started to see some green shoots on our instant consumable business as we've started to see some signs of incremental merch placement that are having an impact. As we've said, more of that to come as we approach the back half of the year. We have visibility to some incremental programming as we look forward into the summer and fall. We also, of course, know that we have very strong, robust innovation that will really help to drive the business.

While we have not built into our numbers any other further potential upsides, we do think as the consumer continues to be more pressured and air travel pulls back, we will likely see some increase in car travel, which could benefit C-store, though we have not built that in. As we look at market share, yeah, we are very pleased with where we are on a year-to-date basis. We had anticipated all along that Q1 would be a little bit softer, Q2 stronger given the shift of Easter. We are really pleased that our year-to-date share is now positive as we have captured that positivity of the later Easter. We continue to expect share to be neutral to up in the second half, driven by our continued outperformance in sweets, where we are really pleased with the momentum we have got there. Our business was up 10%, up 100 basis points in share.

We have seen continued strength in seasons, and we anticipate continued improvement in the trends in chocolate and refreshment given the programming to come.

Andrew Lazar (Managing Director)

Thanks so much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Max Gumport with BNP Paribas. Please proceed with your question.

Max Gumport (Director of Equity Research)

Hey, thanks for the question. There might be some rounding involved with this question, but at the midpoint, your guidance seems to have applied that pre-considering tariffs. Your expectation for EBIT has gone up modestly. If that's correct, just any factors you're seeing that have made you a bit more optimistic on the base business, or really, is there just some rounding going on in terms of what we might be seeing in the guidance? Thanks very much.

Steve Voskuil (CFO)

Yeah, thanks for the question, Max. It is really rounding. Fundamentally, we're still aligned with the outlook for the consumer, so it can't be a change.

Max Gumport (Director of Equity Research)

Great. On the U.S. consumer and snacking pressure in particular, the prepared remarks had comments about the softening consumer sentiment and value-seeking behaviors we are seeing. It sounds like that is really what you would attribute the weakness in snacking that we are currently seeing. I am wondering if you are also seeing any impact from changing consumer preferences and healthier eating. I think those are the types of dynamics that have helped inform some of your recent M&A actions. I would be curious to get more color on what you are seeing on that front. Thanks very much.

Michele Buck (CEO)

Yeah, so let me start by saying, yes, overall, certainly we're seeing a weak consumer confidence down. Fortunately, we aren't really seeing that impact show up in our categories. CMG has held up incredibly well. Part of that is, of course, chocolate in particular plays a very important emotional role in people's lives, the connectivity they have to the brands, especially in troubled times, and especially in our seedlings business. As we look at Salty, certainly the business has held up really well relative to it being premium and permissible. And we've also been really very pleased to see that elasticities have held up really well in the category. On a year-to-date basis, everyday chocolate pricing is up 8%, volume is down 4.5%. So we think that's really another good indicator of the category holding up incredibly well.

Max Gumport (Director of Equity Research)

Great. Thanks very much. I'll pass it on.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of David Palmer with Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your question.

David Palmer (Analyst)

Thanks. Good morning. It looks like seasonal chocolate's going to be strong in the first half, as you had expected. I wonder, it looks like you have bigger plans for everyday chocolate heading into the second half. I think you mentioned that you expect improvement there. Do you think you can get to growth in your non-seasonal chocolate business in the second half?

Michele Buck (CEO)

Yes. We are feeling good based on the plans that we have that that is going to come through. We've mentioned before, very strong innovation that we haven't yet announced in the back half of the year that we think is going to be certainly a key driver. We have and are expecting low single-digit growth in everyday CMG.

David Palmer (Analyst)

That's great. On non-chocolate or sweets, you're doing really well there. I'm sure maybe now you wish you were bigger in that category at this very moment, but I wonder how you're thinking about that strategically. Is that category having a moment with perhaps some new forms out there really driving growth for you, and you're gaining a lot of share? Maybe do you think this is a platform that has legs long-term, that this isn't just a moment where you're getting some hits with forms, but rather this is a category that should outperform chocolate over the long-term? I'll pass it on.

Michele Buck (CEO)

Yep. I absolutely believe that this is not just a moment in time on sweets. It has long-term growth potential. Some of what we're seeing is a strong interest in consumers and in their palates for these types of products. Some components of that are generational and demographic, as we see younger consumers and also young diverse families being big consumers of this segment. I think we've also seen in this segment the power of great innovation and really creating growth, whether it's the new brands that we've put in the marketplace like Shaq, new forms like JR Ropes or Freeze-Dried, and we have further plans to continue to grow and innovate there.

David Palmer (Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Robert Moskow with TD Cowen. Please proceed with your question.

Robert Moskow (Analyst)

Hi, thanks. I saw the news about the ribbon cutting at the REESE'S Chocolate Processing Facility, and I know that you're now at the tail end of your billion-dollar expansion plan for chocolate expanding capacity. Michele, with cocoa futures really stubbornly high and a weaker consumer environment, I would imagine the volume outlook for chocolate must be lower than what was originally expected a few years ago when the capacity expansion started. Forgive me if you've talked about this before, but if you and Steve could help square those two things. If the plan was, say, to expand capacity on chocolate by 10%, but volume has got to be lower than what you thought, how do you still make that capacity expansion work for you financially?

Michele Buck (CEO)

Yep. This new plan really allows us to be much more agile and gives us flexibility across the network. What we are producing at this plant is chocolate paste, which gives us stronger control over our supply chain and more vertical integration. We came into COVID capacity constrained, and as you know, we had several periods of time where we were not able to meet demand, especially in seasons. The $1 billion investment really helped to get us caught up. We are already seeing that benefit show up in seasons where our growth has been significantly higher because we have really been able to capture some of that. That is what has enabled us to gain share every season for the last eight. Also on REESE, that is where we were most underdeveloped or underleveraged on capacity. We are now able to invest for even bigger innovation.

Robert Moskow (Analyst)

Okay. Thank you.

Michele Buck (CEO)

Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jim Salera with Stephens Inc. Please proceed with your question.

Jim Salera (Research Analyst)

Michele, thanks for taking our question. I wanted to maybe drill down on something that we've been hearing recently from HHS in talking about potentially putting some restrictions on what people can buy with SNAP dollars. I guess two-part question. One, are you able to quantify what percentage of your sales are purchased with SNAP dollars? Do you have a sense for how wide-ranging some of those restrictions might be? It seems like the administration's focus is really around artificial ingredients or highly processed food. If I just think about the ingredients in Hershey's Kiss or a milk chocolate bar, there really aren't that many. While it might fall under candy, it might still be included given that it's basically natural. Just any thoughts on there? If you could quantify what the potential impact that might be. Thank you.

Michele Buck (CEO)

Yeah, absolutely. First of all, we're watching how the implementation plays out to get full clarity on exactly how it will work. Based on our current understanding, we don't anticipate a material impact to our business. First of all, we don't over-index to SNAP relative to the category of food in general. In fact, only about 2% of SNAP purchases are candy, which is well below many other categories like soda, salty snacks, desserts. We see pretty similar buying patterns between SNAP and non-SNAP households. Certainly in salty, our portfolio is premium and permissible. We don't anticipate that while the overall category may have an impact, we don't think that that will impact us.

As it relates to kind of the broader your question around natural ingredients and kind of the MAHA component of all of this, our highest priority is always around safety and quality of our products. We proactively tried to stay ahead of where regulation might be headed. We have been ahead of some of the changes that have been needed, like propylparaben ban in California. We were ahead of Red Dye No. 3. We have had work underway on natural coloring for quite some time. Chocolate should be less impacted. You are correct. If you look at the ingredient labels, a lot of our products really are pretty simple natural ingredients. Some of the areas that might be impacted by this are mostly in the sweets portfolio.

Jim Salera (Research Analyst)

Okay. Great. Maybe just as a follow-up to that, in your conversations with your retail partners, do you get a sense that when they're putting together the planograms, that they kind of have an eye towards maybe favoring products that would broadly fall under kind of snack food but have less exposure to artificial ingredients or things like that? Could that potentially be a benefit as we think about shelf resets as we move into the back half of the year?

Michele Buck (CEO)

I mean, I think it could be. I think they're always going to look at what is going to have the highest velocity and make their shelves as productive as possible. Perhaps some of it could be, can every manufacturer move as quickly as needed to be on top of the changes? They will always focus on what consumers want. We know that the importance of focusing on health and wellness and functionality as well as the value of indulgence will continue.

Jim Salera (Research Analyst)

Great. I'll hop back in with you. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

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

Peter Galbo (Analyst)

Hey, good morning, Michele and Steve. Thanks for the questions. I just wanted to circle back, actually, on Ken Goldman's initial question around kind of the tariff thinking. And Michele, maybe just even from reading in the prepared remarks, it reads to me like maybe there was a big internal debate as to whether to include the impact of tariff for full year in the guidance versus just for 2Q. Just maybe help us understand the thinking a bit more around what the internal discussion was on just 2Q versus the full year and kind of how you came to this conclusion relative maybe to some of your peers who have put it in for the full year.

Michele Buck (CEO)

I wouldn't say that we had, we certainly had discussion, but I wouldn't say we had massive internal debate. Steve, maybe you want to talk about it a little bit more.

Steve Voskuil (CFO)

Yeah. No big debate. As I said, peers have done a lot of different things. There is not one formula for how this has been handled. I think the challenge in discussing, A, we always want to be transparent. That goes to the answer to Ken's question on visibility to everything we know at the moment, knowing that it is subject to still a lot of change, particularly on this front. The second piece was the mitigation activity. It is one thing to talk about an unmitigated tariff impact. It is another to talk about a fully mitigated work with our mitigation actions in gear and contributing. Without those two pieces matched up, it is sort of a partial story. We want to give you the pieces as best as we know them.

As we get to the mid-year mark, we'll talk more about that mitigation and probably have a better view of the net impact as we go forward. In the meantime, hopefully, some legislative action will make that unmitigated impact fall lower anyway.

Peter Galbo (Analyst)

Got it. Okay. No, thanks for that. That's helpful. Steve, I think in your prepared remarks, there's some moving pieces just as we try and think about revenue phasing, maybe more so in the back half of the year. I think if I read it correctly, snacks kind of on an unimpacted basis exited at a pretty healthy rate. I know there's some wonkiness in the comps on confectionery and 2Q, but maybe you can just help us on the revenue phasing in the back half of the year. Thanks very much.

Steve Voskuil (CFO)

Let me see. I do not think there is anything surprising in the back half of the year relative to the profile on the top line.

Michele Buck (CEO)

Should be in line with the long-term about 2% to 4% across the quarters in the third and fourth quarter and in line relatively across the segments as well.

Peter Galbo (Analyst)

Okay. Thanks very much.

Steve Voskuil (CFO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Alexia Howard with Bernstein. Please proceed with your question.

Alexia Howard (Analyst)

Good morning, everyone.

Steve Voskuil (CFO)

Morning.

Michele Buck (CEO)

Good morning.

Alexia Howard (Analyst)

Hi. Can I ask, first of all, about the more precise timing of this big innovation in Reese's in the fall? When is that due to happen? You mentioned that you expect it to be the biggest innovation ever on the brand. I mean, that's a pretty big statement. You probably can't tell us what the innovation is, but what is it that gives you confidence that it might be the biggest innovation ever for that brand?

Michele Buck (CEO)

We are consistently innovating and investing in our iconic brands, specifically to give consumers what they're asking for. Sometimes they know what they want. Other times, we're trying to provide them things that we think they will want. This innovation is something that they've been asking for for quite a long time. Based on all of our early planning around that, all of the research that we've done, that gives us a pretty good feel for size of innovation. That's what gives us the confidence relative to the size. Relative to timing, stay tuned. It will be hitting in the fall. We're really anxious for all about it and try it.

Alexia Howard (Analyst)

Great. Thank you. Just to follow up on the additives question, I know, for example, you have Red No. 40 in Twizzlers still. Can you quantify what proportion of your overall sales still have additives in them that would be on the list that's going to be, I guess, banned in 2027?

Michele Buck (CEO)

Yeah. It's largely going to be our sweets portfolio, some refreshments, and then anything else that's coated chocolate. If you think about Cadbury eggs, for example, fall into that bucket. That should give you a feel for the size. Relative to the ingredients, obviously, it's a relatively small total percent of our ingredient costs. We feel good about our ability to be compliant based on all of the work that we have underway already.

Alexia Howard (Analyst)

Great. Thank you very much. I'll pass it on.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Lavery with Piper Sandler. Please proceed with your question.

Michael Lavery (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you. Good morning.

Steve Voskuil (CFO)

Good morning.

Michael Lavery (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

As you talk about readying some of the options, just at least contingency or hypothetical planning for 2026, you called out pricing, price-pack architecture, demand shaping, and sourcing strategies. The price-pack architecture and pricing are fairly straightforward. Can you just maybe give a sense of what some of the demand shaping and sourcing strategy changes might look like?

Michele Buck (CEO)

Yeah, certainly. We really think about some of the mixed opportunities. As we're looking at demand shaping on inflation of cocoa, certainly we have options across our portfolio in sweets, in salty, in parts of the portfolio that are less cocoa intensive. Those are some places that we focus. From a sourcing perspective, we are already doing work in that area for competitive reasons. We do not want to get into too much detail in that area. We have options in terms of how we source that also help us to gain advantage in price, basically generate savings.

Michael Lavery (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah. Okay. That's helpful. Just on salty snacks, you've announced the LesserEvil deal that would add a little bit to your scale. In the commentary after the Mars Kellanova deal was announced, the Mars CEO pointed to one of the benefits being diluting their exposure to cocoa by adding a large salty snacks portfolio. That's from a company that also already has a pet food business. It would seem like some of that logic could apply to your case as well. Do you have sort of any scale ambitions, maybe almost for their own sake in salty? I know you laid out some of your M&A criteria at CAGNY that touched at least a little bit on that. How do you think about just how that business might evolve?

Michele Buck (CEO)

Sure. This really goes back to 2017 when we laid out our vision to be a snacking powerhouse. What that was all about is how do we really leverage our core capabilities to maximize incremental get to incremental consumers and incremental snacking occasions? We do that really by leveraging white spaces that we think are on trend with consumers. We have a large chocolate business. We love our chocolate business, and we want to continue to grow that. We also know that if we get into white spaces like sweets, better for you, and salty, it adds incremental consumers and occasions. That is really the role and what it plays. Certainly within that, as we have said, we are always looking for really great brands that we think can be sustainable and grow over time that are high margin and high growth.

We feel really good that we have a good track record of finding those given the scale that we've achieved with SkinnyPop, with Dot's. We like that LesserEvil specifically is very focused on new benefits, ingredient-focused snackers, and it extends our reach with younger, more diverse demographics, especially young families, which opens up a whole new range of opportunity for us. We see it being a better for you platform that can really be extended and scaled across categories and forms.

Michael Lavery (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Great. Thanks so much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Megan Clapp with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.

Megan Clapp (Analyst)

Hey, good morning. Thanks for squeezing me in. I guess I wanted, if we were to put tariffs aside, maybe a follow-up to Andrew's question earlier in 2026, I just maybe wanted to take your pulse on whether or not if we put tariffs aside, you would feel you would have felt better about the ability to grow EPS next year. I guess I ask because in the prepared remarks, cocoa is still high, but it has retreated, and it does not seem like your stance on the outlook for cocoa prices has changed at all. Michele, I think you did mention elasticities have been a lot better than the -1% you were assuming in the guide.

If we were to put tariffs aside, again, I know it's challenging, and who knows what will happen, but I guess in the base business, do you feel better about the ability to grow earnings in the base business absent tariffs?

Steve Voskuil (CFO)

Yeah. It definitely feels better without tariffs. I would say that equivocally. Do we still see a path, though, and feel a level of confidence about a path to earnings growth if we take tariffs to the side with the base business? I think, yes, based on where cocoa prices are today. Again, that's going to require some aggressive action. As Michele said earlier, those actions are teed up. We'll talk more about that as we get further into the year. From a base business standpoint, our view hasn't changed for 2026.

Megan Clapp (Analyst)

Okay. That's helpful. Thanks. Maybe just a quick follow-up. As it relates to tariffs, the $100 million that you cited unmitigated, does that assume that we for cocoa in particular, does that assume we stay at that 10% paused tariff rate for some of the countries were a bit higher initially? Can you just clarify whether that would assume we stay at the 10% rate?

Steve Voskuil (CFO)

Yes, it does.

Megan Clapp (Analyst)

Okay. Great. Thank you so much.

Steve Voskuil (CFO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Tom Palmer with Citi. Please proceed with your question.

Thomas Palmer (Research Analyst)

Morning, and thanks for the question. Steve, if I heard right, I think when you were answering Ken's question about tariffs, you noted that two-thirds of the exposure is cocoa in Canada. Maybe just some color on the other areas where you would see impact and to what extent you think there could be, I guess, exemptions or whatnot for those types of items? It sounded like the exemption discussion was more around cocoa and perhaps Canada. Thanks.

Steve Voskuil (CFO)

Yeah. You bet. We have other raw material inputs that are imported aside from cocoa. China for us is not huge, but China is still in that calculation as well. Those by comparison to cocoa and Canada are meaningful, but so much smaller. I'd say we're looking at exemptions everywhere we can, focusing on the most impactful pieces first. We do have raw materials that come from other countries as well that also still have some tariff impact. They're not off the table for mitigation. We're looking first where the biggest impacts are.

Thomas Palmer (Research Analyst)

Okay. Thanks for that. In salty snacks, there was in the prepared remarks a note about a 5%-6% volume headwind from fewer shipping days—excuse me—fewer shipping days and also a planned reduction in private label. I do not think that private label commentary had been in previous. Is this a new headwind to think about in 2025? Any framing of the impact, just given the shipping date timing, it seems like this could be maybe approaching a mid-single-digit headwind, at least in 1Q. Thanks.

Steve Voskuil (CFO)

Yeah. We do some private label manufacturing in the popcorn space, but it's sort of subject to what we're doing in SkinnyPop and the brand business. To the extent that business—and it did for the first quarter—it continues to grow strongly. By design, we do less private label and redirect that manufacturing towards our branded products. I'd say it's part of the longer-term strategy as that business grows. It's a headwind of a sort, but it's also a reflection of the core salty business growing.

Thomas Palmer (Research Analyst)

Okay. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Leah Jordan with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question.

Leah Jordan (Analyst)

Good morning. Thank you for fitting me in. I just wanted to ask about international as it came in ahead of your expectations. When we talked last quarter, it seemed like that competition was increasing in several regions, and we had heard recently that not all players were passing along costs. Just seeing if you could provide an update on the competitive environment there and has anything notably changed.

Michele Buck (CEO)

Yeah. As we look at our business, certainly we've seen strong growth on REESE'S, which has been a key investment for us in those international markets. We are seeing strength behind media activation and distribution wins in particular. We also saw strong organic sales growth in Brazil, where we were up double-digits behind a strong Easter and innovation. The competitive environment there really did tend to normalize. It is certainly still very competitive, but it normalized. It did not get worse. I think that helped some of the strength that we've seen in some of the markets. We also just performed really well. We had share gains in India and Brazil and our Mexico spicy business.

Leah Jordan (Analyst)

Great. Thank you. Just one follow-up. In the prepared remarks, you also noted that you're not planning any buybacks for this year. I know it's very dynamic. We've talked about a number of things around tariffs and your mitigation efforts. Should the year play out better than expected and the tariff headwind goes away, what's your appetite for re-engaging on buybacks versus other investments in the business as you think about capital allocation this year?

Steve Voskuil (CFO)

Sure. I mean, buybacks remains in our capital allocation philosophy. As I say, it's good because it puts tension on all of the other choices. From a long-term capital allocation strategy, no change in terms of the role it plays. In the near term, M&A is episodic. We have opportunities when they come up. It's not always that frequent. This year, we've put the focus on that. Going forward, as we look more broadly, long-term share purchase will continue to play a role. If I can go back just to mention Tom's question on private label, I said SkinnyPop capacity, but it's actually Dot's capacity and Pretzels that we were talking about there. My apologies.

Leah Jordan (Analyst)

Yeah. That's enabling the private label deprioritization.

Steve Voskuil (CFO)

That's right.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Chris Carey with Wells Fargo Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Chris Carey (Analyst)

Hi. Good morning, everyone. I wanted to ask about the efforts that you're making on reformulation and price-pack architecture, which certainly seem interesting. Can you expand a bit, maybe give us some early insights on the evolution of your thinking over the past few months, what's worked, what hasn't, and perhaps maybe give some insight on where you think you can perhaps gain some advantages out of this? Maybe price-pack architecture allows you to offer more value and drive some more consumption. Maybe there's ingredient changes you can make to capitalize on new trends. Really just looking for a bit more insight on successes you've seen and where you expect to press on reformulation. Also, just again, from a more proactive perspective, how can this turn into a bit of an advantage for you potentially?

Michele Buck (CEO)

Yeah. We have price-pack architecture actually going into the market now. We are continuing to work on more, but I do not want to give the impression that that has not been a lever that we have already pulled. I think one of the benefits of price-pack architecture, as you mentioned, is it is not a direct price point increase, but rather it is kind of a combination of sizing and price, which can tend to offer perhaps a better value perception for consumers. I think that is always an opportunity if done well. We always try and balance how much of our price realization should come from that lever versus a straight price increase. That was really just part of our earlier August 2024 pricing announcement that we did some PPA. We will share more about our future plans on our full plans going forward.

As we think about, I guess, the competitive advantage component, the investments we have made in our supply chain really do enable us to have a lot of agility and flexibility, both in terms of being able to execute PPA, which involves sometimes the changes in packaging and being able to efficiently do that. It also lets us really look at the formulations to make sure that we are providing the highest quality products at the best cost possible. That would be a competitive advantage, using our R&D folks and our supply chain to make sure that we can really deliver those reformulations, get them in the market as quickly as possible, and do them incredibly well to continue to satisfy consumer demand.

Chris Carey (Analyst)

One quick follow-up would be just around the evolution of your thought process on mitigation tools. As you noted, there was probably a bit more focus on RGM and other revenue growth management and other mitigating factors. As cocoa has lingered, how does pricing come into the equation? Has there been any evolution in your thinking of how large the sorts of tools that you'll need to kind of mitigate this over the next 18 months have become? Any evolution of thought process there over the past few months would also be helpful. Thank you.

Michele Buck (CEO)

I guess I'd start by saying from the very beginning, we have taken a holistic approach. It was evidenced by the transformation program that we put in place, which was really about attacking costs. We did some of that already over these past couple of years. We did take pricing, but we also did take a measured approach to balance the short and the long term. We didn't want to overprice if cocoa were to take a massive retreat. For us, it's never been a concern about an ability to price. We've always had confidence in that. It's just kind of wanting to balance that short and long-term component, the top and bottom line across the P&L. We're encouraged that we've seen some retreat of cocoa, but clearly, cocoa hasn't retreated as much as we would all like.

At this point, we're ready to activate even more of the levers that we've been doing work against and have had underway. We look forward to sharing more about that over the summer.

Chris Carey (Analyst)

Okay. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Scott Marks with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

Scott Marks (Analyst)

Hey, good morning. Thanks so much for fitting me in. First question would be, based on commentary, it obviously sounds like you're expecting cocoa prices to either remain status quo, remain elevated. Let's say, for instance, cocoa prices in the market do come down, whether it be next year or the year after, how would you think about reinvesting in the business to ensure long-term health of the chocolate category?

Steve Voskuil (CFO)

Yeah. Again, that's my dream come true, right, if cocoa prices come down sharply, and that's the choices that we have. We always invest behind our brands. We want to make sure that we're investing in capabilities, technology, the brands, relevant marketing, and innovation. That hasn't been curtailed in this environment. Certainly, if we came out and when cocoa falls, we'll revisit that to make sure we're doing our best to invest in those areas. They haven't been shortchanged here. We will have the opportunity to deploy cash back to shareholders we talked about earlier, have more opportunities for capital allocation. That's how we're thinking about it. We look forward to having that opportunity.

Michele Buck (CEO)

Even with the cost cutting we've done to date, we've done some of that with a lens of where can we get net savings, but at the same time, be investing in technology and capability that let us emerge even stronger. Tools that let us be even more efficient in terms of how we're spending our investments in the business, in marketing, and in trade, those types of things that both save money but also give us kind of a longer-term benefit. We look forward to those as well.

Steve Voskuil (CFO)

Yeah. All of that will allow us to emerge even stronger than we were when we came into the commodity pressure.

Scott Marks (Analyst)

Understood. Second question for me, you've spoken a bit about some of the C-store trends. Wondering if you can just share anything on maybe performance or trends you're seeing across other channels as it relates to your categories. Thanks so much.

Michele Buck (CEO)

Yeah. I would say we're continuing to see a consumer focus on value that's showing up in areas like migration to club. Certainly, dollar continues to be really strong online because of the value that it offers. Depending on who the consumer is, all consumers are looking for value, each of them in different ways that best suit their specific needs. We haven't really seen a significant change in some of those channel trends aside from the ups and downs that we see in C-store. I think take-home overall as a segment has across the board been quite strong with single-digit growth there.

Scott Marks (Analyst)

Got it. We'll pass it on. Thanks so much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Bingqing Zhu with Redburn Atlantic. Please proceed with your question.

Bingqing Zhu (Analyst)

Hi, Mr. Steve. Thanks for taking my question. I have a question about the competitive lens that escaped in the U.S. chocolate. I think in the previous order of the quarter before, you mentioned the intensified competition from a smaller player. Can you comment and provide more color on what you see in terms of the competitive situation in the U.S. chocolate, both from the smaller player, private label, and maybe even slightly premium player there, please? I will have a follow-up. Thank you.

Michele Buck (CEO)

Yeah. I would say we haven't seen significant change in the competitive landscape versus what we have been tracking throughout the year. We had expected some increased competition, certainly from the largest players in terms of innovation. We knew that there would be some of that coming. Smaller players and private label have been softening a little bit in terms of the momentum in the marketplace. They're certainly still out there. In aggregate, there's been a little bit more internal sourcing across them. Certain brands like Feastables and Tony's have been a bit more stable. Again, they're sourcing more amongst that set of smaller brands. We continue to track that over time, but overall, no significant changes that I would really highlight.

Bingqing Zhu (Analyst)

Okay. Thank you. A follow-up, if I can come back to pricing points, please, because your pricing in Q1, North America confectionery is 3%. That is lower than the market pricing, I think you quoted at 8%. Obviously, you have the price-pack architecture. With the cocoa price pretty much locked in in 2025, and from what you said, elasticity is a bit better or in line with your expectation, do you see the possibility of having further pricing increase in the rest of the year to not only mitigate cocoa inflation, but potentially some tariff impact? Thank you.

Michele Buck (CEO)

You will see pricing go up in Q2 and Q3 as more of our seasonal pricing and price-pack architecture kicks in from announced pricing actions that we've already taken. Obviously, we can't talk about any future pricing intentions in advance. We'll give you more color on both cocoa and tariffs and our holistic plans as we get into the summer.

Bingqing Zhu (Analyst)

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our question and answer session. I'll turn the floor back to management for any final comments.

Anoori Naughton (VP of Investor Relations)

Thank you, everyone, for joining us this morning. We look forward to catching up with many of you throughout the day. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.