Posted on 08/03/2002 9:55:43 AM PDT by GeneD
HERSHEY, Pa. - Hershey Foods Corp. workers, residents and government officials rallied yesterday to protest the possible sale of the nation's largest chocolate-maker, saying it would devastate the company and the community.
"We look at this ultimatum and say 'nuts,' " U.S. Rep. George Gekas (R., Pa.) of Dauphin County said at the lunchtime rally, which drew hundreds of people to Hershey's Chocolate Town Square.
"I can't believe they're thinking of selling it," Sandy Farmer, a local real estate agent, said.
The Hershey Trust Co., which controls 77 percent of Hershey Foods' voting shares, announced last week that it was exploring a sale of the company to diversify its investments. More than half the trust's $5.4 billion endowment is made up of Hershey Foods stock.
The sole beneficiary of the endowment is the Milton Hershey School, a prekindergarten-through-12th-grade school for disadvantaged children that was started in 1909 by Hershey Foods founder Milton S. Hershey to educate orphaned boys.
The trust's announcement quickly drew objections from Hershey union leaders, politicians and others.
"I consider Hershey Foods and its employees vital contributors to Pennsylvania and its economy," Gov. Schweiker said in a statement yesterday.
"My administration is committed to pursuing an outcome that preserves both the corporate structure and local employment opportunities in south central Pennsylvania," Schweiker said.
About a half-dozen people spoke at the hourlong rally, including Bruce Hummel, business agent for Chocolate Workers Local 464, which represents Hershey Foods workers.
He said the union would do "everything we can to derail the sale." He said its lawyer would file a federal lawsuit in an effort to prevent any further pursuit of a sale.
"As a 1971 graduate of the [Hershey] school, I have a double interest in stopping the sale," Hummel told the crowd. "For 11 years, the vision of Milton and Catherine Hershey raised me. The school taught me right from wrong and how to treat people. Let me tell you, this is wrong, and this is not how you treat people."
The trust, however, issued a statement saying that it would stick to its plan.
"The decision to seek a buyer for the company was not reached easily or quickly, but it is clear to us that diversification is the best way to fulfill our responsibility to the trust, and we remain steadfast in our commitment to it," the statement said.
It called on the community to show potential purchasers that "there is no better place in the world to make chocolate than Hershey, Pennsylvania."
The president of the Milton Hershey School Alumni Association, Ric Fouad, called for the removal of the trust's executives.
"Get rid of the board of managers leadership now," he said. "We're going to ask the attorney general to make the changes he's empowered to do. Use the assets for children, not for $500,000 salaries for Bill Lepley [president of the Milton Hershey School] and Robert Vowler [chief executive officer of the Hershey Trust Co.]."
( Saudi Arabian and other Arabic interests have been buying heavily into American corporations.)
Do you know a real choclate bar made by an american company? Coca Cola doesn't uses sugar cane instead they use corn syru or if they do it's very little.
Doesn't M&M/Mars own the rights to Cadbury Chocolate candy products. Had my first Cadbury chocolate bar when my da was stationed in England in the mid 1960s. Caramello is an excellent grocery store chocolate/caramel candy bar. The only thing Hershey made that was good was 'Cookies and Mint', but I haven't seen that in the stores in 2-4 years.
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