Andrew Ohm

The moment Wall Street analysts question REESE’S brand strength and pricing power, the issue stops being ingredients and starts being accountability. Because when REESE’S is in doubt, The Hershey Company’s entire stock market valuation is in doubt, all $46.568 billion of it as of February 25, 2026. And Simply Wall St just put that doubt in writing. Simply Wall St didn’t speculate, it documented. And the record is now part of the public financial narrative: 1. REESE’S unit sales are declining, contradicting the story of resilient demand. 2. REESE’S margins are compressed, despite repeated price increases. 3. REESE’S input costs continue rising, exposing the limits of cost‑engineering. 4. Health trends are unfavorable, increasing dependence on REESE’S brand trust. 5. And the authenticity of The Hershey Company highest‑equity brand, REESE’S, is now in dispute. This is not noise. It’s a pattern and patterns are what Wall Street analysts’ price. Yet The Hershey Company's 2026 guidance, issued before the ingredient controversy, still assumes REESE’S will single‑handedly deliver the earnings rebound. That assumption now sits on a foundation Wall Street is openly questioning. And the contradiction at the center of The Hershey Company's narrative is impossible to ignore: You cannot quietly alter a century‑old flagship brand like REESE'S and still claim "pricing power" as if nothing changed. Simply Wall St said it plainly: the ingredient dispute "adds uncertainty around REESE'S authenticity" and could directly undermine the bullish revenue and earnings forecasts through 2028. That is Wall Street analyst code for: the valuation premium is no longer secure. REESE'S pricing power is not a tagline; it is a measurable financial asset. It evaporates the moment consumers believe REESE'S has changed while REESE'S prices keep rising. And when REESE'S pricing power cracks, The Hershey Company multiple cracks with it. The Hershey Company's entire investment narrative rests on one fragile premise: REESE’S is strong enough to offset every structural weakness in the portfolio. But REESE'S is only strong when its truth is intact. Once REESE'S authenticity is questioned, the market recalibrates. Once REESE'S trust erodes, the valuation compresses. Once the flagship REESE'S brand is compromised, the portfolio becomes exposed. And that brings the responsibility squarely to The Hershey Company's Board of Directors. The board now faces a decision that cannot be delegated, deferred or spun: 1. Disclose exactly what changed in the REESE’S formula, when it changed and why it changed. 2. Or accept that Wall Street analysts will continue to fill the information vacuum and reprice The Hershey Company accordingly. HSY's $46.568 billion stock market cap now hinges on a REESE'S brand‑integrity breach! What's your take? https://lnkd.in/eAyGABjE

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I recently walked past this 7-Eleven banner in Japan featuring top celebrities and a prominent line of musical notation. My immediate thought: "interesting. They’re visually triggering the iconic 7-Eleven entrance chime! It’s auditory brand recognition." Just to be sure, I fed the image into Gemini and asked for an analysis of the sheet music. The AI went full music-theorist on it. It told me the key signature was incorrect, the rhythmic notation was physically impossible, and the resulting sound would be a confused, jazzy "Boop-Beep-Bap." Gemini essentially concluded it was the musical equivalent of a broken doorbell.🫠 A case of a designer throwing random "cheerful" notes on a page without meaning. I almost took that as the final answer. But to be sure, I started digging. When I zoomed out and looked at the full campaign ecosystem, the optics changed. If you read the text underneath those "impossible" notes ("Na-ni-ga-a-ru-ka-na"), you realize this isn't a botched attempt at the entrance chime. It’s the literal vocal melody for 7-Eleven’s new nationwide campaign jingle: "What will we find, 7-Eleven?" The AI was technically correct about the strict rules of sheet music in isolation, but it completely failed to understand the marketing context. It’s a fine reminder of how we operate right these days. AI is an incredible tool for analyzing raw data, but it is terrible at reading the room... Like really really bad haha. If we just accept an AI's first assessment as the absolute truth, we risk making strategic decisions based on flawed data. Critical thinking and contextual awareness aren't "nice to have" skills (especially these days) they are the only things separating you from a very confident, very wrong AI output. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 𝗝𝗠𝗟 | 𝗙𝘂𝗹𝗹 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗺 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗘𝗻𝘁𝗿𝘆 Data needs context. We provide both. In the Japanese market, technical analysis will only get you so far without cultural and operational context. JML brings the human expertise required to turn raw information into a viable market entry strategy. #ArtificialIntelligence #MarketingStrategy #JapanBusiness #CriticalThinking #7ElevenJapan #MarketEntry #JML

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The Real Margin Question for Conventional Retail: Let's Talk Numbers. After 40+ years navigating the CPG space, I keep coming back to the same fundamental question—and I genuinely want to hear what experienced operators and new brand owners think. If you're launching or scaling a brand through conventional retail today (think supermarkets, grocery chains, mass retailers), what gross margin do you actually need? Not the theoretical number. The real number that lets you: Invest in marketing and brand building without bleeding cash. Hit retail slotting and maintain shelf space. Support your sales team and account management. Weather the inevitable trade spend demands. Still have something left at the end of the month. A definition: Gross Margin = (Net Sales - COGS) / Net Sales Net Sales = what you actually get after retailer deductions, allowances, and trade spend. COGS = raw materials, packaging, manufacturing labor—not marketing or distribution. Many calculate on the list price, not the net. After 15-20% trade spend hits, that 50% margin becomes 30-35% pretty fast. That's why conventional wisdom believes that you need 45-50% gross margin to actually invest in building a brand in traditional retail. Here's what I'm genuinely curious about, because I suspect the answer varies more than most people admit: Does it matter if you're in shelf-stable, refrigerated, or frozen? The operational costs are so different. A frozen brand fighting logistics costs needs a very different margin target than a shelf-stable snack. But I want to hear from people actually living in those categories. What the data suggests: Industry research points to ranges like 40-50% being the "sweet spot" for specialty foods, with some arguing you need at least 35-40% to survive in conventional retail. But here's the thing—those numbers mean nothing if they're calculated differently or if they're not accounting for trade marketing spend, slotting, promotional allowances, and all the hidden costs that retailers and distributors take on the way through. The margin illusion: I've seen so many founders celebrate hitting 40% gross margin, only to get sideways when they realize that number didn't account for the 15-20% trade spend hit, retailer deductions, or logistics costs that should come off the top. SO HERE IS MY QUESTION: If you're successfully building and scaling a brand through conventional retail today, what's the minimum gross margin (calculated the right way—net sales, post-trade spend) you've needed actually to invest in the brand and grow? Is it 45%? 50%? Higher? And does it depend on your category? How is food different from a beverage? Let's build a real conversation here, not based on old playbooks, but on what's actually working (or not working) for people in the trenches right now. I'd love to hear from brand builders, retailers, distributors, and anyone else who's navigated these margins for real. Photo by Brad on Unsplash

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The current wave of winter disruption across much of the country has been a fascinating real-time case study in how behavioral science and strategy intersect. Ahead of a major storm, consumers don’t simply “buy more.” Behavior shifts quickly and predictably. Risk tolerance drops. People gravitate toward products that feel essential, flexible, familiar, and reliable. Items that can stretch across multiple meals, feed a family easily, and create a sense of security carry outsized value. Scarcity cues accelerate purchasing decisions. Eggs are a great example. Affordable protein, endlessly versatile, easy to store, and emotionally familiar. They quietly become a resilience product when uncertainty rises. From a strategy perspective, these moments are incredibly revealing. Demand forecasting isn’t just about weather models. It’s about understanding behavioral triggers, media amplification, and how households actually respond under stress. Supply chain resilience stops being an abstract operational goal and becomes a lived brand promise. Reliability compounds trust in ways that advertising never can. This is very tangible for us at Cal-Maine. Our strategy is built around serving the marketplace and our customers with a highly reliable, vertically integrated operating model that can perform consistently through cycles and disruptions, not just when conditions are easy. The objective is simple: build an operating system that delivers for customers when it’s tested. What’s equally visible in these moments is that resilience isn’t just a system. It’s people executing the system. Production teams, drivers, warehouse crews, store teams, and supply chain operators don’t get to “wait out” storms. They show up, operate through uncertainty, and keep essential systems moving so families can maintain a sense of normalcy. I’m genuinely grateful for the commitment and professionalism this takes. 📸 Image credit: creative direction and production by my 11-year-old son, early evidence that strategy instincts start young. #BehavioralScience #Strategy #ConsumerBehavior #CPG #FoodSystems #SupplyChain #Operations #Leadership #Resilience #ConsumerStaples

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