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In a major move to guide its next phase of operational scaling, The Hershey Company has announced that Mitchell Arends has been named Chief Supply Chain Officer, effective 22 June 2026.

Arends succeeds Jason Reiman, who is retiring after a distinguished thirty-year career with the company. To ensure a thorough and highly structured leadership handoff, Reiman will remain with the organisation through April 2027, partnering with Arends on supply chain modernisation, network optimisation, and integrated planning.

This deliberate, ten-month transition period highlights Hershey's commitment to corporate governance and business continuity. In an era where sudden executive departures can disrupt manufacturing schedules and damage investor confidence, a structured succession timeline allows the incoming leader to absorb complex operational workflows, establish relationships with agricultural suppliers, and align with the broader corporate strategy without disrupting daily market delivery.

Having joined Hershey as an intern, Reiman built a career spanning the full breadth of the supply chain, culminating in his appointment as Chief Supply Chain Officer. During his leadership, Reiman oversaw a profound shift in Hershey's manufacturing philosophy, moving away from a heavy reliance on third-party co-packers in favour of robust internal production:

• In-House Capability Expansion: Reiman successfully brought core capacity and advanced confectionery capabilities directly inside Hershey's owned facilities, protecting proprietary manufacturing processes and securing stronger product quality controls.

• Salty Snacks Insourcing Initiative: Under his direction, the company built a highly resilient manufacturing and logistics network for its rapidly growing salty snacks division, transitioning the segment to be eighty per cent insourced. This operational pivot significantly reduced third-party margin erosion and insulated the brand from external capacity constraints.

• Digital Manufacturing Integration: Reiman pioneered the construction and commissioning of two fully digitally integrated manufacturing plants, establishing a high-tech blueprint for real-time data tracking, automated line changeovers, and advanced quality assurance.

By leaving behind a highly capitalised, technologically advanced, and largely self-reliant manufacturing network, Reiman has positioned Hershey to defend its market-leading margins against rising commodity and labour costs.

Mitch Arends Experience

Arends enters Hershey with more than twenty-five years of end-to-end supply chain leadership across some of the most prominent businesses in the consumer packaged goods industry. His career has been defined by managing complex, multi-billion-dollar logistics networks and executing large-scale operational transformations.

Arends joins the company from Utz Brands, where he served as Executive Vice President, Principal Operating Officer, and Chief Integrated Supply Chain Officer. In this role, he held full operational accountability for a 1.5 billion USD business, overseeing supply chain logistics, research and development, corporate transformation, and complex direct store delivery operations. Direct store delivery is a highly demanding logistical model that requires precise, real-time coordination between manufacturing hubs and local retail shelves, providing Arends with deep expertise in managing high-velocity retail execution.

Prior to his tenure at Utz, Arends served as the Chief Supply Chain Officer of North America at Kraft Heinz, where he was responsible for a massive 22 billion USD supply chain encompassing procurement, manufacturing, logistics, and planning. Managing an operation of this scale requires a sophisticated understanding of global agricultural sourcing, commodity hedging, and multi-facility industrial engineering.

This diverse background across both high-volume snacking and massive multinational food portfolios makes Arends uniquely suited to build upon Hershey's established supply chain foundation while introducing fresh perspectives on global efficiency.

Digital Integration and Network Optimisation

Under the leadership of Kirk Tanner, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Hershey Company, the organisation is placing an increased emphasis on accelerating digital integration, advanced automation, and insights-driven planning across its global network.

As Arends assumes his new role, the long-term commercial success of Hershey’s supply chain will depend on several key strategic priorities:

• Sustaining the Talent Pipeline: In line with Arends’ focus on people-first leadership, the company must continue to invest in developing highly skilled technical staff capable of operating advanced automated machinery and managing complex digital systems.

• Advanced Digital Integration: Expanding the use of artificial intelligence and predictive data analytics across procurement and logistics will enable the company to anticipate ingredient shortages, optimise shipping routes, and reduce overall warehouse holding costs.

• Insights-Driven Demand Planning: Aligning real-time retail sales data directly with agricultural sourcing and manufacturing schedules will allow Hershey to minimise overproduction, improve order-fulfilment rates, and respond dynamically to shifting consumer purchasing habits.

By combining Reiman's legacy of robust in-house manufacturing with Arends' extensive expertise in large-scale digital transformation and direct store delivery, Hershey is well-positioned to navigate ongoing global market volatility. This strategic executive transition reinforces the company's status as an agile, forward-looking leader in the global confectionery and snacking sectors, proving that long-term value creation is fundamentally driven by supply chain resilience and disciplined operational execution.