USA | The Hershey Company has announced that Mitchell Arends has been named Chief Supply Chain Officer, effective the 22nd of June, 2026.
Arends succeeds Jason Reiman, who is retiring after a 30-year career with the company. Reiman will remain through April 2027 to ensure a thorough and structured leadership transition.
"I've always believed that great leadership is a relay. I'm proud to hand this baton to Mitch," said Reiman.
"He has the vision, the experience, and the values to carry this work forward and to uphold what Milton Hershey built. I'm grateful for every year, for the people I worked alongside, and for what this company stands for."
Arends brings more than 25 years of end-to-end supply chain leadership in consumer-packaged goods. He joins Hershey from UTZ Brands, where he served as Executive Vice President, Principal Operating Officer, and Chief Integrated Supply Chain Officer, with full operational accountability for a USD 1.5 billion business spanning supply chain, R&D, transformation and direct store delivery (DSD) operations.
Prior to UTZ, Arends served as Chief Supply Chain Officer of North America at Kraft Heinz, responsible for a USD 22 billion supply chain across manufacturing, logistics, planning, and procurement.
Arends will focus on accelerating digital integration and automation and advancing insights-driven planning across the network.
During the transition period through the first quarter of 2027, Reiman will partner with Arends on modernisation, with a focus on integrated planning, accelerated digital capabilities and network optimisation.
Reiman joined Hershey as an intern and built a career spanning with his significant contributions, including bringing core capacity and expanded confection capabilities in-house, standing up two fully digitally integrated manufacturing facilities, and building the salty snacks network, which is now 80 percent insourced.
"The opportunity to continue building a supply chain for some of the world's most iconic products is an exciting moment in my career," said Arends.
"Doing that in a way that develops people and strengthens the communities where we operate makes it even more so. Building a supply chain fit for the future means more than deploying technology or optimising networks. It means developing the talent capable of sustaining that transformation long after any single initiative is complete."
Mitchell Arends
More global news here
