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The Hershey Company has unveiled its 2026 holiday product portfolio, introducing an expansive collection of seasonal confectionery, sweet-and-salty snack lines, licensed entertainment tie-ups, and branded merchandise.
The seasonal programme connects core confectionery masterbrands, including Hershey's Kisses, Reese's, and Kit Kat, with high-profile intellectual property partnerships, led by Dr Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! and the holiday film Elf. The sweet portfolio is complemented by ready-to-eat popcorn line extensions from SkinnyPop and LesserEvil, alongside a limited-edition Hershey's Kisses gift-wrapping foil kit launching online for Cyber Monday on 30 November.
The multi-category deployment highlights the confectionery multinational's commercial focus on capturing diverse fourth-quarter consumption occasions, bridging formal holiday gifting and stocking fillers with casual home entertaining, baking, and movie-night snacking.
"People are finding new ways to make holiday traditions fit their lives while holding onto the moments and favourites they love," said Samantha Siegal, Senior Director of Marketing at The Hershey Company. "Our holiday portfolio brings both together, pairing familiar favourites with playful flavours, new formats and sweet-and-salty choices for the way people gather, give and celebrate today."
New Confectionery Products
The lead product innovations for 2026 leverage character licensing to deliver visual differentiation and novel flavour formulations across sharing bags and impulse formats:
🍓 Hershey's Kisses Cindy-Lou Who Strawberry Sugar Cookie: A limited-edition Kiss variant inspired by Cindy-Lou Who from Dr Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, pairing ripe strawberry notes with sweet sugar cookie flavours, wrapped in festive character-themed foils.
🐶 Hershey's Hugs Max the Dog Foils: Classic Hershey's Hugs milk chocolate and white creme candies packaged in foil wrappers featuring Max the Dog, designed for candy dishes and seasonal gifting.
🦌 KIT KAT® Santa & Reindeer: Crisp wafer fingers coated in smooth milk chocolate moulded into seasonal Santa and reindeer shapes, merchandised across multiple pack configurations for stocking fillers and sharing.
🍿 Reese's Reindeer Mix: A sweet-and-salty trail mix combining chocolate-drizzled popcorn, Reese's peanut butter baking chips, Reese's Mini Trees, and candy-coated Reese's Pieces in a resealable stand-up pouch.
Salty Snacking Products
Hershey is leaning heavily into adjacent savoury and sweet-and-salty snacking categories to capture informal gathering and home entertainment spend:
🍁 SkinnyPop Elf Maple Syrup Kettle Corn: Developed in partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery's holiday film Elf, this ready-to-eat kettle popcorn delivers a sweet maple syrup glaze over popped corn kernels.
🍿 LesserEvil Himalayan Sweetness Popcorn: Clean-label organic popcorn formulated with a balanced sweet-and-salty seasoning profile, packaged in single-serve portions suitable for school functions and everyday festive snacking.
Incorporating branded popcorn into the holiday roster allows the manufacturer to capture non-candy snacking occasions during family gatherings and streaming movie nights, driving basket attachment outside traditional chocolate aisles.
Returning Seasonal Items
Alongside novel flavour profiles, Hershey has reintroduced its foundational chocolate shapes and holiday flavour extensions:
🎄 Reese's Peanut Butter Trees: The brand's signature milk chocolate and peanut butter formulation moulded into holiday tree shapes, accompanied by unwrapped Reese's Mini Trees in resealable pouches.
🍪 Hershey's Kisses Snickerdoodle Cookie: Bite-sized chocolates infused with cinnamon-sugar snickerdoodle biscuit flavours and textured crunch inclusions.
🍬 KIT KAT® Peppermint Stick: Crisp wafers coated in festive peppermint-flavoured creme, available in standard-size and snack-size bars.
🍫 Hershey's Grinch Milk Chocolate Bar 6-Pack: Standard milk chocolate bars packaged in collectable Grinch-themed wrappers, bundled in a multi-pack format designed for gifting.
Availablity
Complementing the consumable food portfolio, Hershey is commercialising its packaging intellectual property with a standalone non-food merchandise item:
Hershey's Kisses Holiday Gift-Wrapping Foil Kit: Replicates the metallic silver and patterned foil designs of classic Hershey's Kisses into rolls of domestic wrapping paper, available exclusively via the company's direct-to-consumer storefront at shop.hersheys.com/holiday starting on Cyber Monday, 30 November.
The 2026 holiday collection is rolling out across major mass merchants, supermarket multiples, convenience store operators, and club channels nationwide for the duration of the festive trading season while promotional allocations last.
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