Hershey Co. Reports Fourth Quarter And Full Year Net Sales Gains

"We exited 2010 with momentum and expect to build on our success in 2011 as we have many exciting initiatives planned to drive growth across our markets, including the U.S. launch of Hershey's Drops, Reese's Minis and other yet to be announced new products. We'll also begin to leverage the learnings from our insights driven performance project and continue the disciplined roll-out and distribution of the Hershey's and Hershey's Kisses brands in select key emerging markets, where we are gaining consumer awareness, trial and most importantly, repeat purchases. In 2011, we expect advertising to increase mid-single digits, on a percentage basis versus last year, supporting new product launches and core brands in both the U.S. and international markets. Commodity markets remain volatile, however, we have visibility into our cost structure. While we anticipate meaningfully higher input costs in 2011, productivity and cost savings initiatives are in place and we estimate that full-year 2011 adjusted gross margin will be about the same as last year, while we continue to leverage the global go-to-market capabilities we have built over the past few years. As a result, we expect full-year 2011 net sales and adjusted earnings per share-diluted growth to be around the top of the company's long-term 3 percent to 5 percent and 6 to 8 percent objectives, respectively," West concluded.