Hershey To Hike Prices 8%; Sees FY14 'At Low End' Of Targets

unveiled an eight percent wholesale price increase Tuesday and said its fiscal 2014 results will be "at the low end" of long-term targets. The company said it expects to post second-quarter adjusted earnings of $0.75 to $0.77 cents a share on revenue growth of 4.5 percent. That's in line with a Wall Street consensus for earnings of $0.76 cents a share, on revenue of $1.6 billion. The price hike won't affect the second quarter because direct buying customers will be exempt until Aug. 12. Hershey said it won't see benefits until the Halloween buying season. Hershey said the "volume elasticity" of its products as well as "channel mix headwinds" will reduce full-year 2014 sales growth to the low end of its five percent to seven percent targeted range. Commodity costs higher than forecast earlier, are expected to narrow Hershey's gross margin and put income growth also at the low end of its targeted range of nine percent to 11 percent. In after-hours trading, Hershey was changing hands at $94.7, down 0.31 percent.