May 17, 2021 | 10:00 a.m., Eastern Daylight Time

Notice of 2021 Annual Meeting and Proxy Statement

2020 Annual Report to Stockholders

May 17, 2021 | 10:00 a.m., Eastern Daylight Time Virtual Meeting Site: HSY2021

Michele Buck Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

April 7, 2021

Dear Fellow Stockholder:

It is my pleasure to invite you to attend The Hershey Company's 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, which will be held at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Monday, May 17, 2021.

We will once again conduct the meeting virtually to ensure your health and safety as well as the safety of all who assist with and support the meeting. Following this letter are detailed instructions regarding how to access the virtual meeting and how to vote your Hershey shares. Your vote is extremely important, so I encourage you to review the materials and submit your vote as soon as possible.

2020 was an unprecedented year of challenges and hardship, but also one that brought opportunity, resilience and compassion as individuals, businesses and communities around the world quickly adapted to address the impacts of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic ("COVID-19"). We also experienced continued social unrest as we wrestled with issues of systemic racism and political polarization. Our company's purpose, to make more moments of goodness, and our values of togetherness, integrity, excellence and making a difference, grounded and inspired us as we looked after one another and worked to safely make the beloved products that were such an important part of the comfort and connection people needed as they navigated this unprecedented time. I could not be prouder of the care, concern and commitment our teammates showed to one another, our customers, and our communities. Focus, agility and resilience enabled us to adapt and pivot to rapidly changing consumer behaviors and to deliver against our objectives for the year while strengthening the culture of this special company.

In 2020, we made tremendous progress across key areas of our business and seized momentum gains that position us well in the year ahead. And while we continue to face uncertainty in 2021, our focus on consumers' needs and being a part of consumer traditions and new occasions puts us in a strong position this year and beyond. Our priorities remain to deliver on the needs of our consumers, customers and communities; help ensure the physical, emotional, and economic well-being of our employees; advance key initiatives to secure our future; and deliver long-term, sustainable stockholder value.

COVID-19 changed what and where consumers were eating, yet our category and our trusted brands became even more important, particularly when it came to celebrating seasons and spending time at home with family.

Innovation remains a key part of our portfolio expansion strategy and a driver for our success. We continue to bring exciting, relevant products to market, including Reese's Cups Stuffed with Pretzels and Kit Kat? Mocha Bar, that meet the desire for new textures and flavors from some of our best-selling brands. We also have launched Kit Kat? Thins and our new Zero-Sugar and Organic lines. These new products and formulations will give consumers more great-tasting ways to enjoy their favorite Hershey brands.

Seasons has always been a key driver for our business and 2020 reconfirmed how important seasonal rituals are to consumers as they were able to find new ways to safely enjoy treasured celebrations. Our strong consumer insights and deep category expertise enabled us to provide the right seasonal products and new ways to celebrate, giving us strong seasonal growth and significant market share gains last year. We expect this momentum to continue in 2021.

Our omni-channel strategy to ensure both our every day and seasonal products are available wherever consumers shop ? whether online or in a physical location ? continues to grow as we optimize the consumer experience and inspire new ideas. Our e-commerce net sales more than doubled in 2020 and continue to represent an important growth opportunity for the company in 2021 and beyond.

Our snacks portfolio continued its strong growth as well, with double-digit retail sales growth for SkinnyPop Brand, which also maintained its No. 2 market share in ready-to-eat popcorn at more than 20%. Pirate's Booty Brand also saw healthy growth in 2020. We see additional upside for these two great brands in 2021 as we pursue more distribution growth in the year ahead.

Our International business remains a key contributor to our overall company performance and gives us important, strategic geographic diversification. While 2020 was a challenging year for International as our markets around the world were disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 restrictions and economic difficulties, our business outperformed the category, giving us chocolate share gains in all key markets for the year. We are taking steps to enhance our long-term International financial strength, including the evolution of our go-to-market model in China. We are confident this and other initiatives across our International operations will enable us to continue to provide consumers worldwide with the products they love in efficient and effective ways.

We made significant investments this year not only in our brands, but also in technology, supply chain, capabilities across sales and marketing, and our people. One of our company's top priorities is advancing our Environmental, Social and Governance ("ESG") agenda. We recently announced our science-based greenhouse gas reduction targets for the years ahead. We continued our strong cocoa sustainability efforts, including achieving our goal to purchase 100% certified and sustainable cocoa, and announced a new deforestation policy and updated packaging commitments. We continue to advance our efforts to be a more diverse, equitable and inclusive company and to meaningfully invest in the communities where our employees live and work.

As stockholders who deeply care about the success and future of The Hershey Company, we should be pleased with the great progress we made in 2020, and the tremendous opportunities that lie ahead of us in 2021 and beyond. We will continue to execute with excellence against the things within our control and we will continue to show the agility and resilience that distinguished our business this past year when challenges and opportunities come our way. We also remain focused on building strategies and capabilities for our future to drive long-term stockholder value and deliver balanced, accelerated growth.

Thank you for your continued trust in The Hershey Company. I am excited about where we are and where we are going. We look forward to sharing more details about the past year and the opportunities the lie ahead during the Annual Meeting.

Michele Buck

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Safe Harbor Statement

Please refer to the 2020 Annual Report to Stockholders that accompanies this letter for a discussion of Risk Factors that could cause future results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements, expectations and assumptions expressed or implied in this letter to stockholders or elsewhere. This letter to stockholders is not part of our proxy soliciting material.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

NOTICE OF 2021 ANNUAL MEETING OF STOCKHOLDERS

PROXY STATEMENT SUMMARY 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Voting Matters and Board Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Our Director Nominees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Governance Highlights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Company Strategy and 2020 Business Highlights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Executive Compensation Highlights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 PROXY STATEMENT Questions and Answers about the Annual Meeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Corporate Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 The Board of Directors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Meetings and Committees of the Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Proposal No. 1 ? Election of Directors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Non-Employee Director Compensation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Share Ownership of Directors, Management and Certain Beneficial Owners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Audit Committee Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Information about our Independent Auditors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Proposal No. 2 ? Ratification of Appointment of Independent Auditors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Compensation Discussion & Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Executive Compensation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 The Role of the Compensation Committee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Compensation Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Setting Compensation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Base Salary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Annual Incentives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Long-Term Incentives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Perquisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Retirement Plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Employment Agreements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Severance and Change in Control Plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Stock Ownership Guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Other Compensation Policies and Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Compensation Committee Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 2020 Summary Compensation Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 2020 Grants of Plan-Based Awards Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Outstanding Equity Awards at 2020 Fiscal-Year End Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

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