Hershey is using AI to strategize for s’mores season

CPG Playbook // August 24, 2026 Hershey is using AI to strategize for s’mores season By Mitchell Parton The Hershey Company The Hershey Company has started using new AI tools to maximize sales of s’mores ingredients in stores — including its own chocolates, as well as marshmallows and graham crackers.

This year, the company started using a new proprietary AI tool developed in-house that uses computer vision and augmented reality to identify where to place s’mores displays in stores and determine how they perform based on consumer data, according to Stephanie Berman, vp of retail at The Hershey Company.

Hershey also started using AI this year in its marketing-mix model to better understand real-time consumer data.

“The big thing for us as we look at AI: It’s been about real-time data, it’s been about getting closer to the consumer in more real time, and it’s about partnering with our retailers on how we see the consumer behaving, so that we can iterate faster and more meaningfully with the consumer,” Berman said.

“It’s all about real-time data, faster decisions and then optimization, both in-store and online.” S’mores-related sales of Hershey products have grown in the double digits year over year to date, the company said.

Hershey estimates that s’mores generate $200 million to $250 million in overall sales during its peak season, roughly from Easter through Labor Day. Hershey’s sales performance was also helped by the new, limited-time-only caramel Hershey’s chocolate bar, which may inspire similar product launches next year.

“We’re going to look at what that may mean for 2027 with emerging trends in the s’mores occasion, and then what may be the right proposition, knowing the success we had with our caramel item,” Berman said.

Circana merchandising data shows that sales of marshmallows and graham crackers increase most around major summer holidays such as Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day, with lifts as high as 300% in peak weeks.

“This illustrates how powerful the combination of seasonality, occasion and visibility can be,” said Kiara Barrett, global head of thought leadership for Circana. The computer vision and display placement platform has so far been used in several thousand stores, according to Berman.

The platform uses augmented reality to visualize digital 3D product displays in real-world retail environments, and image recognition to provide insights on merchandising execution, location effectiveness and sales performance. It also allowed Hershey to share with merchants how the s’mores displays have performed.

“The retailers seeing the strongest returns are those that place displays where they naturally align with shopper missions and seasonal occasions rather than simply allocating more square footage,” Barrett said. Hershey uses pallet trains, or standalone displays, to feature Hershey’s chocolate as well as graham crackers and marshmallows from other brands.

During s’mores season, the pallet trains outperformed end caps by 101%, according to the company. “Featuring occasion-based use-cases can tap into emotional needs that unlock the value of your products beyond the pack,” said Michael Hill, senior partner and head of commerce strategy for Kantar.

Sales teams take pictures of the s’mores displays in stores, and, in conjunction with point-of-sale data, the AI tool will determine where in the store the displays work best.

“Like being below the fold on search results, being in low-traffic parts of the store or with the wrong neighbors (like non-organic displays) in an organic aisle will negate the benefits of a larger display,” Hill said.

For example, the company found s’mores displays placed near camping products had a high level of interaction with consumers, according to Berman. “We would see consumers engage with our products in display locations around the store, so that our team could help optimize where in the store consumers were finding the display,” Berman said.

“And then, we could work with retailers to continue to evolve and continue to ensure we were maximizing the programming through the best locations in their stores.” Through the AI marketing-mix model, Berman said, the company has been able to identify consumer trends with where and when they were shopping and compare it with historical shopping data.

The model pulls in and standardizes data from social, search and streaming platforms to make fast, informed decisions about where Hershey’s advertising dollars go based on what’s happening in the market at that moment, rather than months before. The company said this turns what once took five months of manual spreadsheet work into an overnight process.

For s’mores, the company found a roughly 20% year-ov