Most people picture Hershey as chocolate. The company buys far more than cocoa. Packaging, ingredients, freight and logistics, contract manufacturing, marketing and creative services, facilities and MRO, IT, professional services. If your business sells into consumer packaged goods at any tier, there is a category at Hershey that touches what you do. The question is not whether Hershey buys what you sell. It is whether you have set yourself up the way their procurement team expects.
Here is the part that trips up most owners: Hershey does not run a generic "email us your capabilities" inbox as the front door. It runs a structured intake. Get the structure right and you are in the consideration set. Skip it and you are invisible no matter how good your product is.
What Hershey actually buysThink in two buckets. Direct spend is anything that goes into the product or its packaging: cocoa and dairy, sweeteners, flavors, films and folding cartons, corrugate. Indirect spend is everything that keeps the company running: logistics, temp labor, agency work, software, equipment, repairs, consulting.
For a smaller or newly certified business, indirect categories are usually the realistic entry point. The qualification bar on a marketing vendor or a regional logistics provider is lower than on a food-contact ingredient supplier, where food-safety audits and continuity-of-supply requirements are heavy. Be honest about which bucket you fit, because the registration path and the diligence are different.
How registration actually worksHershey routes new suppliers through a portal called SupplierOne, hosted at thehersheycompany.supplierone.co. This is the real front door. You create a profile, describe your business, list your categories, and flag any diversity certifications you hold.
A few things to understand about portals like this. Registering is not a contract and it is not a guarantee anyone calls you. It puts your company into a searchable system that category managers query when a need opens up. So the goal is not just to be in the database. The goal is to be findable for the exact terms a buyer would type. Use plain category language and specific NAICS codes. A vague profile that says "we provide solutions" will never surface; a profile that says "folding carton printing, SQF-certified, Midwest, runs of 5K to 500K" will.
Hershey's intake reads as open registration rather than invitation-only, which is good news for cold entrants. But open registration also means volume, so the quality of your profile is what separates you. Fill every field. Attach a tight capability statement. Keep your certifications current.
The diversity-certification angleHershey names its supplier diversity work the Supplier Development Program, and it is unusually explicit about which third-party certifiers it works with. The page lists active partnerships with:
- NMSDC (minority-owned, MBE certification)
- WBENC (women-owned, WBE) and WEConnect International (women-owned, global)
- NGLCC (LGBT-owned, LGBTBE)
- NaVOBA (veteran-owned, VBE/SDVBE)
- Disability:IN (disability-owned, DOBE)
It also recognizes SBA-certified small businesses and HUBZone firms.
Why this list matters: when a corporate program names specific certifiers, it is telling you exactly which credential gets your profile filtered into the right pool. A self-declared "minority-owned" checkbox carries far less weight than a current NMSDC certificate, because Hershey reports diverse spend and the people who count that spend trust third-party certification, not self-attestation.
If you sell to Fortune 500 buyers and you are not certified yet, that is the highest-leverage move you can make. National certifications take real effort, and one application can feed dozens of corporate portals. We walk through the most common one, NMSDC's MBE certification, in our NMSDC certification guide, and if you would rather hand off the paperwork across multiple programs at once, that is what CertifyAll exists for.
How to get noticed (or invited) after you registerRegistering is table stakes. Getting pulled into a sourcing event takes a little more.
First, make your capability statement do work. One page, scannable, with your certifications, NAICS codes, past CPG or retail clients, capacity, and certifications listed up top. Category managers skim.
Second, go where Hershey's diversity team already is. Companies that partner with NMSDC, WBENC, and NGLCC send buyers to those councils' matchmaker events and trade shows. A two-minute conversation at a regional NMSDC opportunity fair routinely outperforms a hundred cold portal entries, because you walk away with a name. After the event, your portal profile is the thing that name looks you up in.
Third, be specific about fit. Do not pitch "we can do anything." Pitch the one category where you are demonstrably strong and you have references. CPG procurement teams trust suppliers who already serve similar accounts.
The Tier-2 side doorThis is the part most owners miss, and it is often the faster way in.
Hershey runs both Tier 1 and Tier 2 programs. In its own words: Tier 1 suppliers are the ones Hershey pays directly. Tier 2 suppliers are paid by Hershey's Tier 1 suppliers. And here is the lever: Hershey expects its larger Tier 1 suppliers that do not themselves qualify as diverse to drive Tier-2 diverse spend through their own subcontracting, and those suppliers can face quarterly reporting on it.
Translation: every big Tier 1 vendor at Hershey has a reason to find certified diverse subcontractors, because their customer is measuring them on it. If breaking in directly feels like a wall, target the primes instead. A packaging converter, a logistics 3PL, a marketing agency holding company. Become their diverse subcontractor and you are inside Hershey's reported diverse spend without ever winning a direct contract first. That relationship is frequently the proof point that later earns you a direct Tier 1 conversation.
To make this work, your certification has to be current and visible, because Tier 1 suppliers report Tier-2 spend by certification status. An expired certificate quietly drops you out of someone's report.
Where this leaves youThe path is concrete. Get certified with a body Hershey actually names. Register on SupplierOne with a profile a buyer can find. Show up at the council events where Hershey's diversity team recruits. And if the direct door is slow, work the Tier 2 angle through Hershey's existing primes.
Hershey is one company with one program. The same playbook (certify once, register precisely, target both Tier 1 and Tier 2) maps onto most large corporate buyers, and the specifics vary more than you would expect. If you want to see which other corporate programs recognize your certifications and how their registration differs, the corporate program directory is a reasonable next stop.
