The Hershey Company is rolling out Hershey's Creme Bars in two flavor-forward varieties — Salted Caramel and Affogato — marking the $11.7 billion confectionery giant's latest push to capture incremental snack occasions with trend-driven fillings inside its core milk-chocolate platform.
The Product
Both SKUs are available now at participating retailers in a 2.2 oz standard bar and an 8.4 oz snack-size pouch. The Salted Caramel bar pairs a caramel filling with balanced sweetness, while the Affogato variety stacks a dual-layer filling of espresso-flavored caramel and sweet vanilla creme — a coffeehouse-inspired format that tracks closely with the growing premiumization trend in the confectionery and snack-bar segment. Retailer pricing remains at each operator's discretion.
Marketing & Distribution Push
To drive awareness, Hershey is activating a campaign with KATSEYE, a multi Grammy-nominated global girl group whose fan base skews toward the Gen Z demographic that confectionery brands have been competing aggressively to win. The partnership centers on the group's signature "Pinky Up" gesture, repositioned as a brand cue for the new bars. Beyond paid media, Hershey has structured a distribution-and-trial play with Uber, targeting consumers at select cultural moments when they are already in motion and open to impulse purchase — a channel strategy that aligns with where convenience-format snack sales have been migrating as foot traffic continues shifting from traditional c-store counters toward delivery and rideshare adjacencies.
Fall pop-up sampling activations will supplement the digital campaign, giving Hershey a direct-to-consumer trial mechanism for a product where texture and flavor complexity are the core differentiators.
Category Context
The Creme Bar launch fits a broader pattern among major confectionery manufacturers: layering premium, flavor-specific fillings into legacy bar formats to command shelf attention without cannibalizing base SKUs. Hershey is not alone in this approach — Mars and Ferrero have both pursued similar LTO-to-permanent-item pipelines with filled-chocolate platforms over the past 18 months. For foodservice and c-store operators, the relevant question is velocity: Affogato's espresso-caramel profile positions the bar as a coffee-daypart complement, while Salted Caramel continues to be one of the most durable flavor anchors in the impulse confection set. Katrina Vatter, Senior Brand Manager at The Hershey Company, described the launch as being "about celebrating the small choices that help people express themselves and create moments of happiness throughout their day," underscoring that Hershey is positioning these bars as an everyday trade-up rather than a seasonal or limited-time offer.
With more than 85 brands and approximately 65 countries of distribution, Hershey's scale gives Creme Bars immediate shelf presence. Whether the Affogato format — a concept more at home in a specialty café than a gas-station cooler — can achieve broad velocity across mass and convenience channels will be the cleaner read on whether Hershey's premiumization play is landing with mainstream snack buyers.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
