Hershey benefits from
buying Mauna Loa

HARRISBURG, Pa. » The newly renamed Hershey Co., the nation's largest candy maker, said yesterday that first-quarter profits rose 10.3 percent on the strength of several new products and last year's purchase of a Mexican candy maker and the Big Island's Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Corp.

Hershey earned $118.2 million, or 47 cents a share, for the first three months of 2005, compared with a gain of $107.1 million, or 41 cents a share, in the same period a year earlier. That figure beat the consensus forecast of 46 cents a share by analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call.

Sales rose to $1.13 billion, an increase of 11 percent from $1 billion a year ago.

Based on the results, the company said it is expecting sales growth to exceed its stated expectation of 3 percent to 4 percent and earnings per share growth to be at the upper range of its 9 to 11 percent expectation in 2005.

Hershey cited the introduction of Hershey's Take 5, a new line of cookies, Ice Breakers gum variations, and limited editions of its better-known chocolate brands for sales growth of 8 percent.

The acquisitions of Mauna Loa, Hawaii's largest macadamia nut processor, and the Mexico-based maker of spicy candies, Grupo Lorena, brought sales growth of 3 percent, Hershey said.

The results came two days after the company changed its 37-year-old Hershey Foods Corp. name and dropped a logo of a stylized blue "H" in favor of one that resembles the wrapper on its Hershey's chocolate bar and a wrapped Hershey's Kiss.

In search of a new image, the company has undertaken a wider corporate makeover that also involves big-city retail stores and snack foods lines, such as health bars and cookies.

The Hershey, Pa.-based company also makes the Reese's, Almond Joy, Mounds, KitKat and Mr. Goodbar, and employs 14,000 worldwide.