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The Hershey Company is the largest producer of chocolate in North America. Hershey markets, sells and distributes their products under more than 100 brand names in approximately 80 countries.
Earthworm Foundation helps Hershey implement its Responsible Palm Oil Sourcing Policy, which commits the company to sourcing 100% traceable and sustainable palm oil products within its supply chains. Earthworm Foundation supports Hershey to conduct traceability exercises with their palm oil suppliers to understand the universe of potential mills and plantations where the palm they source could have been produced. Hershey supports several transformation initiatives to drive better environmental and social practices on the ground, including Earthworm landscape projects in Peninsular Malaysia and Aceh, Indonesia.
Earthworm helps Hershey develop its Responsible Palm Oil Sourcing Policy, committing to no deforestation, no peat development and no exploitation in its palm oil supply and beginning its work on traceability to mill- and plantation-level
Earthworm supports Hershey as it begins engagement with suppliers to advance implementation of its NDPE policy
Hershey partners with a palm oil refiner company to support a training workshop on sustainable palm oil practices for their supplying mills
Hershey starts to support EF’s landscapes programme by contributing to the Aceh landscape in Indonesia. Hershey also begins publicly reporting the list of mills in its palm oil supply chain
Hershey contributes to Earthworm’s Rurality programme in East Riau, seeking to increase the resilience of smallholders in Indonesia’s largest palm producing region
Hershey funds a pilot of Earthworm’s Kumacaya programme in Aceh, Indonesia, which enables independent monitoring and verifying of social and environmental issues by local people and CSOs. Hershey also establishes a formal process for response to grievances and a public grievance log
Hershey joins the Starling Users Group, a pre-competitive collaboration with other EF members to reduce duplication of deforestation-free verification efforts
Hershey expands support for transformation programmes as it becomes a Contributor to the Southern CFS (Central Forest Spine) Landscape in Peninsular Malaysia
Palm oil is a highly versatile and inexpensive vegetable oil – we eat it, put it on our bodies and can burn it for fuel. This has made it a major driver of economic growth in many countries, but can also lead to many issues such as loss of tropical forest habitats, which contain more than half of the Earth’s plants and animal species.
Through its partnership with Earthworm Foundation, Hershey maintains high levels of traceability and provides direct support to transformation efforts in its supply. Additionally, Earthworm supports Hershey’s supplier engagement regarding policy implementation and grievance response, investigating cases where suppliers’ actions may have failed to live up to Hershey’s Responsible Palm Oil Sourcing Policy.
Hershey has established a target for a 100% verified deforestation free palm oil supply chain by 2025. It utilizes Earthworm’s Starling spatial monitoring service to proactively detect cases of deforestation in its palm supply chain and, with support from Earthworm, engages suppliers to address non-compliances. In addition, Hershey is collaborating with other Earthworm members to utilize Forest Footprint data to identify potential opportunities to conserve standing forest.
Hershey also contributes directly to collaborative transformation work in Indonesia and Malaysia to further support companies in its supply chain to meet Hershey’s policy as well as make substantive progress towards industry wide improvements.
