The Hershey Company, known until April 2005 as the
Hershey Foods Corporation and commonly called
Hershey's, is the largest
chocolateChocolate is a raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America. Its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC...
manufacturer in North America. Its headquarters are in
Hershey, PennsylvaniaHershey is a census-designated place in Derry Township, Dauphin County in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The community is located 14 miles east of Harrisburg and is part of the Harrisburg–Carlisle Metropolitan Statistical Area. Hershey has no legal status as an incorporated municipality...
, which is also home to
Hershey's Chocolate WorldHershey’s Chocolate World is the name of Hershey’s visitor center in Hershey, Pennsylvania, United States. Open year-round, Hershey's Chocolate World offers marketplace shops and restaurants, specializing in Hershey's chocolate products...
. It was founded by
Milton S. HersheyMilton Snavely Hershey was an American confectioner, philanthropist, and founder of The Hershey Chocolate Company and the "company town" of Hershey, Pennsylvania....
in 1894 as the Hershey Chocolate Company, a subsidiary of his
Lancaster Caramel CompanyThe Lancaster Caramel Company of Lancaster, Pennsylvania was founded by Milton S. Hershey in 1886. It was Hershey's first successful candy company and helped him build a reputation. The Hershey Chocolate Company became a subsidiary of the Lancaster Caramel Company in 1894...
. Hershey's products are sold in about sixty countries worldwide.
Hershey is one of the oldest
chocolateChocolate is a raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America. Its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC...
companies in the United States, and an American icon for its chocolate bar. It is one of a group of companies established by Milton Hershey. Other Milton Hershey-established companies include Hershey Trust Company, and
Hershey Entertainment and Resorts CompanyHershey Entertainment and Resorts , also known as "HERCO", is a privately owned company of the Hershey Trust Company.- History :The company was originally founded by Milton S...
, which runs
HersheyparkHersheypark is an amusement park located in Hershey, Pennsylvania, near the Hershey Chocolate Factory.Hersheypark was opened on April 24, 1907 as a leisure park for the employees of the Hershey Chocolate Company, an American confectionery company. Later, the company decided to open the park to the...
, a chocolate-themed amusement park, the
Hershey BearsThe Hershey Bears Hockey Club is a professional ice hockey team playing in the American Hockey League, and is currently the top affiliate of the NHL Washington Capitals. The hockey club is based in the unincorporated town of Hershey, Pennsylvania, located within Derry Township some 14 miles east of...
minor professional hockey team,
Hersheypark StadiumHersheypark Stadium is a stadium, located in Hershey, Pennsylvania, on the grounds of Hersheypark. The General Manager is Frank O'Connell.It is used as a sporting facility, concert venue and location for various other large functions . In addition, it hosted the 2004 Presidential Race Campaign stop...
and the
GIANT CenterThe Giant Center is a 10,500-seat multi-purpose arena in Hershey, Pennsylvania, a census-designated place in the Harrisburg metropolitan area. It is home to the Hershey Bears ice hockey team, the longest-existing member of the American Hockey League since 1938...
. Most of the employees for the factory come from the surrounding counties, towns, and boroughs, such as Lebanon County,
HummelstownHummelstown is a borough in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 4,360 as of the 2000 census. It is part of the Harrisburg–Carlisle Metropolitan Statistical Area....
, South Hanover, and
HarrisburgHarrisburg is the capital of Pennsylvania. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 49,528, making it the ninth largest city in Pennsylvania...
.
History
After completing an
apprenticeshipApprenticeship is a system of training a new generation of practitioners of a skill. Apprentices or protégés build their careers from apprenticeships...
to a confectioner in 1873,
Milton Snavely HersheyMilton Snavely Hershey was an American confectioner, philanthropist, and founder of The Hershey Chocolate Company and the "company town" of Hershey, Pennsylvania....
founded a candy shop in Philadelphia, which failed six years later. After trying unsuccessfully to manufacture candy in New York, Hershey returned to Pennsylvania, where he founded the
Lancaster Caramel CompanyThe Lancaster Caramel Company of Lancaster, Pennsylvania was founded by Milton S. Hershey in 1886. It was Hershey's first successful candy company and helped him build a reputation. The Hershey Chocolate Company became a subsidiary of the Lancaster Caramel Company in 1894...
, whose use of fresh milk in caramels proved successful. In 1900, Hershey sold his caramel company for $1,000,000 (equal to $ today) and began to concentrate on chocolate manufacturing.
In 1903, Hershey began construction of a chocolate plant in his hometown, Derry Church, Pennsylvania, which later came to be known as
Hershey, PennsylvaniaHershey is a census-designated place in Derry Township, Dauphin County in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The community is located 14 miles east of Harrisburg and is part of the Harrisburg–Carlisle Metropolitan Statistical Area. Hershey has no legal status as an incorporated municipality...
. The milk chocolate bars manufactured at this plant proved successful, and the company grew rapidly.
Milton built a milk-processing plant in the year 1896, so he could create and refine a recipe for milk chocolate candies. In 1899, three years later, he developed the Hershey process which is less sensitive to milk quality than traditional methods.
In 1907, Hershey introduced a new candy, small flat-bottomed conical-shaped pieces of chocolate that he named "
Hershey's KissHershey's Kisses is a brand of chocolate manufactured by The Hershey Company. The bite-sized pieces of chocolate have a distinctive shape, commonly described as flat-bottomed teardrops. Hershey's Kisses chocolates are wrapped in squares of lightweight aluminum foil with a narrow strip of paper...
". Initially they were individually wrapped by hand in squares of foil, and the introduction of machine wrapping in 1921 simplified the process while adding the small paper ribbon to the top of the package to indicate that it was a genuine Hershey product. Now, 80 million of the candies are produced each day. Other products introduced included
Mr. GoodbarMr. Goodbar is a chocolate-flavored candy bar containing peanuts, whose packaging can be easily identified by its distinctive yellow background and red text. It is manufactured by The Hershey Company and was introduced in 1925...
, containing
peanutsPeanuts is a syndicated daily and Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz, which ran from October 2, 1950, to February 13, 2000, continuing in reruns afterward...
in chocolate, in 1925, Hershey's Syrup in 1926, semi-sweet dark chocolate chips in 1928, and the
KrackelKrackel is a chocolate candy bar made by The Hershey Company.Krackel contains crisped rice, and is similar to the competing Nestlé Crunch bar made by Nestlé. Krackel originally sold as an individual candy bar product, and is now only available as one of the four varieties of Hershey's Miniatures. ...
bar containing crisped rice in 1938.
Harry Burnett Reese worked at Hershey, beginning in 1917, as a dairyman for the Hershey Farms. In 1921 he went to work in the factory. By 1925, he had developed an assortment of candies which he was able to sell to department stores in Lancaster, advertised as "made in Hershey." In 1926 he built his own factory and then in 1941 with the wartime rationing of sugar, Reese focused all of his production resources on his own confectionery masterpiece, the peanut butter cup, which required less sugar than most other confections of the time. In 1956, Reese died, leaving the company to his six sons. In June 1963, Hershey Chocolate Corporation acquired Reese's company for $23.3 million at a time when Reese's sales were $14 million annually.
Labor unrest came to Hershey in the late 1930s as a
CIO-backed unionThe Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, proposed by John L. Lewis in 1932, was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 required union leaders to swear that they were not...
attempted to organize the factory workers. A failed sit-down strike in 1937 ended in violence, as loyalist workers and local dairy farmers beat many of the strikers as they attempted to leave the plant. By 1940, an affiliate of the
American Federation of LaborThe American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
had successfully organized Hershey's workers under the leadership of John Shearer, who became the first President of Local Chapter Number 464 of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers Union. Local 464 still represents the Hershey workforce.
Shortly before
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Bruce Murrie, son of long-term president of Hershey's, William F.R. Murrie, struck a deal with Forrest Mars to create a hard sugar-coated chocolate that would be called
M&M'sM&M's are dragée-like "colorful button-shaped candies" produced by Mars, Incorporated...
(for Mars and Murrie). Murrie had 20 percent interest in the confection. The new confection would use Hershey chocolate during the
rationingRationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, or services. Rationing controls the size of the ration, one's allotted portion of the resources being distributed on a particular day or at a particular time.- In economics :...
era during World War II. In 1948 Mars bought out Murrie's interest and would become one of Hershey's primary competitors.
In 2007, the Chocolate Manufacturers Association in the United States, whose members include Hershey,
NestléNestlé S.A. is the world's largest food and nutrition company. Founded and headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland, Nestlé originated in a 1905 merger of the Anglo-Swiss Milk Company, established in 1867 by brothers George Page and Charles Page, and Farine Lactée Henri Nestlé, founded in 1866 by Henri...
, and
Archer Daniels MidlandThe Archer Daniels Midland Company is a conglomerate headquartered in Decatur, Illinois. ADM operates more than 270 plants worldwide, where cereal grains and oilseeds are processed into products used in food, beverage, nutraceutical, industrial and animal feed markets worldwide.ADM was named the...
,
lobbiedLobbying is the act of attempting to influence decisions made by officials in the government, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies. Lobbying is done by various people or groups, from private-sector individuals or corporations, fellow legislators or government officials, or...
the
Food and Drug AdministrationThe Food and Drug Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, one of the United States federal executive departments...
to change the legal definition of chocolate to let them substitute partially hydrogenated vegetable oils for cocoa butter in addition to using artificial sweeteners and milk substitutes. Currently, the Food and Drug Administration does not allow a product to be called "chocolate" if the product contains any of these ingredients.
In December 2007, Philadelphia city councilman Juan Ramos called for Hershey's to stop marketing "Ice Breakers Pacs", a kind of mint, due to the resemblance of its packaging to a kind that was used for illegal street drugs.
In September 2008, MSNBC reported that several Hershey chocolate products were reformulated to replace cocoa butter with vegetable oil as an emulsifier. According to the company, this change was made to reduce the costs of producing the products instead of raising their prices or decreasing the sizes. Some consumers complained that the taste was different, but the company stated that in the company-sponsored blind taste tests, approximately half of consumers preferred the new versions. As the new versions no longer met the
Food and Drug AdministrationThe Food and Drug Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, one of the United States federal executive departments...
's official definition of "milk chocolate", the changed items were relabeled from stating they were "milk chocolate" and "made with chocolate" to "chocolate candy" and "chocolaty."
Manufacturing plants
The
Hershey, PennsylvaniaHershey is a census-designated place in Derry Township, Dauphin County in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The community is located 14 miles east of Harrisburg and is part of the Harrisburg–Carlisle Metropolitan Statistical Area. Hershey has no legal status as an incorporated municipality...
plant, covering 2000000 square feet (185,806.1 m²) of manufacturing space, is the largest chocolate factory in the world.
The first plant outside
Hershey, PennsylvaniaHershey is a census-designated place in Derry Township, Dauphin County in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The community is located 14 miles east of Harrisburg and is part of the Harrisburg–Carlisle Metropolitan Statistical Area. Hershey has no legal status as an incorporated municipality...
opened on June 15, 1963 in
Smiths Falls, OntarioSmiths Falls is a town in Eastern Ontario, Canada. It is in the census division for Lanark County, but is considered a separated town and does not participate in county government...
, Canada and the third opened on May 22, 1965 in
Oakdale, CaliforniaOakdale is a city in Stanislaus County, California, United States. It is part of the Modesto Metropolitan Statistical Area. The city was founded in 1871 when the Stockton & Visalia Railroad met the Copperopolis Railroad...
. In February and April 2007 Hershey's announced that their Smiths Falls and Oakdale plants would close in 2008, being replaced in part by a new facility in
Monterrey, MexicoMonterrey , is the capital city of the northeastern state of Nuevo León in the country of Mexico. The city is anchor to the third-largest metropolitan area in Mexico and is ranked as the ninth-largest city in the nation. Monterrey serves as a commercial center in the north of the country and is the...
. The Oakdale factory closed on February 1, 2008. Hershey chocolate factory in São Roque, Brazil was opened in August 2002.
Hershey also has plants in
Stuarts Draft, VirginiaStuarts Draft is a census-designated place in Augusta County, Virginia, United States. The population was 8,367 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Staunton–Waynesboro Micropolitan Statistical Area....
;
Lancaster, PennsylvaniaLancaster is a city in the south-central part of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is the county seat of Lancaster County and one of the older inland cities in the United States, . With a population of 59,322, it ranks eighth in population among Pennsylvania's cities...
;
Hazleton, PennsylvaniaHazleton is a city in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 25,340 at the 2010 census, an increase of 8.6% from the 2000 census count .-Greater Hazleton:...
;
Memphis, TennesseeMemphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
;
Robinson, IllinoisRobinson is a city in Crawford County, Illinois, United States. The population was 6,822 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Crawford County.-Geography:Robinson is located at ....
and
GuadalajaraGuadalajara is the capital of the Mexican state of Jalisco, and the seat of the municipality of Guadalajara. The city is located in the central region of Jalisco in the western-pacific area of Mexico. With a population of 1,564,514 it is Mexico's second most populous municipality...
,
MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
.
Visitors to Hershey, Pennsylvania can experience
Hershey's Chocolate WorldHershey’s Chocolate World is the name of Hershey’s visitor center in Hershey, Pennsylvania, United States. Open year-round, Hershey's Chocolate World offers marketplace shops and restaurants, specializing in Hershey's chocolate products...
visitors center and its simulated tour ride. Public tours were once operated in the Pennsylvania and California factories, which ended in Pennsylvania in 1973 as soon as Hershey's Chocolate World opened, and later in California following the September 11, 2001 attacks, due to security concerns.
Other sales and acquisitions
In 1969, Hershey received a license from
Rowntree'sRowntree's was a confectionery business based in York, England. It is now a historic brand owned by Nestlé, used to market a range of fruit gums and pastilles formerly owned by Rowntree's. Following a merger with John Mackintosh & Co., the Company became known as Rowntree Mackintosh, was listed on...
to manufacture and market
Kit KatKit Kat is a chocolate-coated wafer confection that was created by Rowntree's of York, England, and is now produced worldwide by Nestlé, which acquired Rowntree in 1988, except in the United States where it is made under licence by The Hershey Company. Each bar consists of fingers composed of three...
and
RoloRolo is a brand of truncated-cone-shaped or frustum-shaped chocolates with a caramel centre, the shape resembling that of a shallow inverted bucket or tub or a traditional lampshade. They are made by Nestlé, except in the United States where production has been under licence by The Hershey Company...
in the United States. As of March 2011, Hershey continued to make and market these brands in the U.S. under license from
NestléNestlé S.A. is the world's largest food and nutrition company. Founded and headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland, Nestlé originated in a 1905 merger of the Anglo-Swiss Milk Company, established in 1867 by brothers George Page and Charles Page, and Farine Lactée Henri Nestlé, founded in 1866 by Henri...
, owners of the Rowntree brand.
In 1977, Hershey acquired Y&S Candies, founded in 1845, and became the makers of
TwizzlersTwizzlers is a brand of red licorice candy in the United States and Canada. Twizzlers is the product of Y&S Candies, Inc., of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, now a subsidiary of The Hershey Company.-History:...
licorice candies.
In 1986, Hershey's began a brief foray into cough drops when it acquired the Luden's cough drops brand. But by 2001, the brand had been sold to
PharmaciaPharmacia was a pharmaceutical and biotechnological company in Sweden.-History:Pharmacia was founded in 1911 in Stockholm, Sweden by pharmacist Gustav Felix Grönfeldt at the Elgen Pharmacy. The company is named after the Greek word φαρμακεία, transliterated pharmakeia, which means 'sorcery'...
, and Luden's eventually became a product of
Prestige BrandsPrestige Brands, Inc. is a company that manufactures personal care and home cleaning products. It was formed by the merger of Medtech Products, Inc., Prestige Brands International, and The Spic and Span Company...
. Hershey's kept Luden's
5th AvenueThe 5th Avenue is a candy bar currently marketed by The Hershey Company.The candy bar was reportedly introduced in 1936 by Luden's, at the time a subsidiary of Food Industries of Philadelphia...
bar. In 1988, Hershey's acquired the rights to manufacture and distribute many Cadbury-branded products in the United States. The Cadbury creme eggs sold in the United States are imported by Hershey from Cadbury in the United Kingdom. In 1996, Hershey purchased the American operations of the
Leaf Candy CompanyLeaf International BV is a market leader in candy, chewing gum and pastilles in Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland and Belgium and has a number two position in Norway, Denmark, Belgium and Italy. In total Leaf products are sold in more than 50 countries worldwide...
from
HuhtamäkiHuhtamäki is a Finnish company, headquartered in Espoo, which manufactures and supplies packaging for various uses. Its primary outputs include cartons and containers for foods and other consumer goods, disposable tableware and films and laminates for such uses as adhesives, plasters and labels...
.
On July 25, 2002 it became public knowledge that the
Hershey Trust CompanyHershey Trust Company was created in 1905, as Milton S. Hershey was organized to create the Milton Hershey School. In 1909, when he founded the school, Hershey appointed the Trust as administrator of the school trust...
was seeking to sell its controlling interest in the Hershey Foods Corporation. The value of Hershey stock skyrocketed 25% with over 19 million shares trading that day. But over the following 55 days, widespread press coverage, as well as pressure from Pennsylvania Attorney General Mike Fisher, the community of Hershey, and Dauphin County Orphans' Court Senior Judge Warren G. Morgan, led to the sale being abandoned. The seven Hershey trustees who voted to sell Hershey Foods on September 17, 2002, for US$12.5 billion to the William Wrigley Jr. Company were removed by Attorney General Fisher and Judge Morgan. Ten of the 17 trustees were forced to resign and four new members who lived locally were appointed. The former Pennsylvania Attorney General, LeRoy S. Zimmerman, became the new chairman of the reconstituted Milton Hershey School Trustees. Mr. Zimmerman has publicly committed to having the Milton Hershey School Trust always retain its interest in The Hershey Company. If Hershey is sold, the rights to make and market Kit Kat and Rolo products in the U.S. would revert to Nestlé.
In December 2004, Hershey acquired the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Corp. from The Shansby Group.
In July 2005, Hershey acquired the
Berkeley, CaliforniaBerkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
based boutique chocolate-maker
Scharffen BergerScharffen Berger Chocolate is a line of chocolate produced by Artisan Confections Company, a subsidiary of The Hershey Company. Acquired by Hershey in 2005, it was formerly produced by Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker, an independent Berkeley, California-based chocolate maker, founded in 1996 by...
. In November 2005, Hershey acquired
Joseph Schmidt ConfectionsJoseph Schmidt Confections was a San Francisco-based chocolatier, which produced gourmet confections using imported Belgian chocolate. The line of confections includes large, mini and petit truffles, slicks, and mosaics. Joseph Schmidt confections ceased operations 2009.-Early:Joseph Schmidt...
, the
San FranciscoSan Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
based chocolatier, and a year later, in November 2006, Hershey acquired Dagoba Organic Chocolate, a boutique chocolate maker based in
Ashland, OregonAshland is a city in Jackson County, Oregon, United States, near Interstate 5 and the California border, and located in the south end of the Rogue Valley. It was named after Ashland County, Ohio, point of origin of Abel Helman and other founders, and secondarily for Ashland, Kentucky, where other...
.
Hershey's chocolate is available across the United States, due to their wide network of distribution. They have three mega
distribution centerA distribution center for a set of products is a warehouse or other specialized building, often with refrigeration or air conditioning, which is stocked with products to be redistributed to retailers, to wholesalers, or directly to consumers. A distribution center is a principal part, the order...
s, with modern technology and labor management systems.
Product recalls
- In November 2006, the Smiths Falls production plant in Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, Canada temporarily shut down and several products were voluntarily recalled after concerns over salmonellaSalmonella is a genus of rod-shaped, Gram-negative, non-spore-forming, predominantly motile enterobacteria with diameters around 0.7 to 1.5 µm, lengths from 2 to 5 µm, and flagella which grade in all directions . They are chemoorganotrophs, obtaining their energy from oxidation and reduction...
contamination possibly found in soy lecithinLecithin is a generic term to designate any group of yellow-brownish fatty substances occurring in animal and plant tissues, and in egg yolk, composed of phosphoric acid, choline, fatty acids, glycerol, glycolipids, triglycerides, and phospholipids .The word lecithin was originally coined in 1847 by...
within their production line. It is believed that most of the products involved in the recall never made it to the retail level.
- In July 1998, a number of 100 g (3.5 oz) milk chocolate bars being sold for fund raising events were recalled because they may have contained traces of almonds not listed in the ingredients.
Criticism
Hershey has been criticized for not having programs to ensure sustainable and ethical cocoa purchase, lagging behind its competitors in
fair tradeFair trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach that aims to help producers in developing countries make better trading conditions and promote sustainability. The movement advocates the payment of a higher price to producers as well as higher social and environmental standards...
measures. Regarding Hershey's corporate practices, the Global Exchange report comments that:
Hershey has no policies in place to purchase cocoa that has been produced without the use of labor exploitation, and the company has consistently refused to provide public information about its cocoa sources. Additionally, Hershey has made no move to shift to third-party certification for the cocoa that it sources from West Africa. No information is available from Hershey about how the money it has invested in various programs in West Africa has actually impacted reductions in forced, traffickedHuman trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor, or a modern-day form of slavery...
, and child laborChild labour refers to the employment of children at regular and sustained labour. This practice is considered exploitative by many international organizations and is illegal in many countries...
among the suppliers of its cocoa. Finally, Hershey's efforts to further cut costs in its cocoa production has led to a reduction in good jobs in the United States.
In October 2011, a discrimination lawsuit was filed against
Milton Hershey SchoolThe Milton Hershey School is a private philanthropic boarding school in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Originally named the Hershey Industrial School, the institution was founded and funded by chocolate industrialist Milton Snavely Hershey and his wife, Catherine Sweeney Hershey...
, connected with the Hershey company, for allegedly denying admission to an honors student because he was
HIVHuman immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
positive.
Use of foreign student labor
In August 2011, the main distribution center for Hershey candies was subjected to a strike by about 400 young foreign workers brought to the United States under the J1 "cultural exchange" visa program. The center in
Palmyra, PennsylvaniaPalmyra is a borough in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is part of the Lebanon, PA Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 7,096 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Palmyra is located at ....
was run for Hershey by Excel Logistics based in Ohio. Excel in turn subcontracted the staffing of the center to another firm SHS OnSite Solutions based in
Lemoyne, PennsylvaniaLemoyne is a borough in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, United States. Lemoyne was incorporated as a borough on May 23, 1905. As of the 2000 census, the borough population was 3,995. It was formerly named Bridgeport. Lemoyne lies across the Susquehanna River from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's capital...
. The students were recruited by yet another organization called the Council on Educational Travel (CETUSA).
To the students, CETUSA promised:
The students paid CETUSA up to $6,000 to participate in the program. The students came from countries such as Costa Rica, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Poland, and Romania. One said, "I spent some of the worst moments of my life during that exchange."
As the strike made national news, Hershey pressured its contractors to provide the students with a week of paid vacation to allow them to see America. Hershey, Excel, SHS OnSite Solutions and CETUSA all removed any mention of the strike from their web sites.
See also
External links