Why Hershey Is Losing Its Sweet Tooth

Food ▶ Chasing evolving tastes, it’s embracing beef jerky ▶ “If it says protein on it, consumers will buy it”

Hershey, Pa., smells like chocolate. Its street lamps are shaped like Hershey’s Kisses, and its roads bear names like Cocoa Avenue. So it’s surprising that Hershey, the town’s namesake candy giant, whose annual revenue swelled to more than $7 billion selling chocolate with peanut butter, chocolate with almonds, and just plain chocolate, is staking so much of its future on a radically different snack: beef jerky.

With sugar widely branded a health hazard and Americans cutting back on sweets in favor of Greek yogurt cups and protein bars, Hershey saw sales fall in 2015 for the first time in more than a decade. To halt the slide, the company is betting on a growing appetite for