Hershey’s market value as of Wednesday’s close was $21 billion, while Mondelez’s stood at $69 billion. Meanwhile, rising cocoa prices have made the chocolate business less profitable, and it’s hard to raise sales of chocolate in the United States, the world’s largest consumer of chocolate. Mondelez, which was spun off from Kraft in 2012, is the world’s second-largest confectionery company — but it has very little business in the United States. Hershey, on the other hand, gets more than four-fifths of its sales in North America. “It’s a surprising move, but it does make sense for Mondelez,” said Jack Skelly, a food analyst at Euromonitor.

Source: New York Times June 30, 2016 19:07 UTC