Hershey chocolate is made by The Hershey Company , which is a publicly traded corporation, but effective control of the company rests with the Hershey Trust Company, a charitable trust created by founder Milton S. Hershey.

Who “owns” Hershey chocolate?

  • Legally, Hershey is owned by many shareholders because The Hershey Company trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker HSY.
  • In practice, the Hershey Trust Company is the key controlling owner: it holds roughly 28% of Hershey’s shares but around 79–80% of the voting power through special Class B stock, giving it effective control over major decisions.

What is the Hershey Trust?

  • The Hershey Trust Company is a philanthropic trust set up by Milton S. Hershey to fund the Milton Hershey School, a residential school for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
  • Because the Trust controls most of the voting power, profits from Hershey ultimately help support the Milton Hershey School, making Hershey’s ownership structure unusually tied to a charitable mission.

Other major shareholders

  • Large institutional investors such as Vanguard, BlackRock, Capital Group, State Street, and others own significant portions of the remaining common stock, but without the same voting control as the Trust.
  • Individual (retail) investors and company insiders hold the rest of the shares, benefiting financially but having relatively limited influence on corporate control compared with the Trust.

Mini timeline context

  • 1894: Milton S. Hershey founds the Hershey Chocolate Company, which eventually grows into The Hershey Company known today.
  • 20th century onward: Hershey’s founder channels ownership into the Hershey Trust to fund the Milton Hershey School, creating the modern control structure where a charitable trust effectively “owns” Hershey chocolate in a strategic sense.

TL;DR:
Hershey chocolate is produced by The Hershey Company, a public corporation, but the Hershey Trust Company is the dominant controlling owner through its special voting shares, and it uses that control and its dividends to support the Milton Hershey School.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.