Hershey Co (NYSE:HSY) was mentioned cautiously by short seller Bear Cave. Hershey, a leading chocolate company in the U.S., has traditionally been considered a safe and reliable investment, with a long history of consistent growth and a strong brand. However, according to the Bear Cave report, the landscape is changing, and Hershey now faces rapidly growing competition from MrBeast, a highly influential 25-year-old YouTube star.
MrBeast has recently launched his own chocolate brand called Feastables, which was launched in January 2022 and directly competes with Hershey in the market. This brand has rapidly gained popularity and, according to Bear Cave, will soon take a major bite out of Hershey’s profits.
Feastables' marketing strategy has been particularly effective, capturing public attention by offering ten lucky chocolate bar purchasers the opportunity to compete for ownership of a chocolate factory in a highly publicized MrBeast YouTube video.
The success of this marketing campaign has translated into significant growth for Feastables. By the end of 2022, Feastables was stocked in every Walmart (NYSE:WMT) and “selling a couple hundred thousand bars a week.”.
In contrast, Hershey's revenue in 2022 relied heavily on its sales to McLane Company, the primary distributor of Hershey products to Walmart, accounting for approximately 28% of its $10.4 billion in revenue.
“One important nuance for investors to understand is that while Hershey has customers, Feastables has fans. For example, a March 2023 tweet from MrBeast asking for help cleaning up Feastables display cases has over 144,000 likes and over 44 million views,” mentioned the report.