The Hershey Company (HSY) will raise its quarterly dividend by exactly 4.0 percent to $0.804 per share in 2020. Last year the chocolate and non-chocolate confectionery manufacturer hiked its quarterly dividend by 7.1 percent. This year's increase will mark the 11th consecutive year of dividend increases by Hershey.

The next dividend is payable September 15, 2020, to stockholders of record August 21, 2020. The new annual dividend of $3.20 per share for HSY yields 2.2% at a stock price of $146.

In its press release announcing this dividend hike Hershey states that it is the 363rd consecutive regular dividend on the Common Stock and the 144th consecutive regular dividend on the Class B Common Stock.

The Hershey Company has raised its dividend by an average of 6.6 percent annually in the last five years. This dividend hike however is the smallest announced by the company since 2009, when the dividend was kept unchanged for the second consecutive year. The biggest dividend hike was announced in 2012, when Hershey raised its dividend by 21.7 percent.

The company now pays a record amount of $666 million annually in dividends to shareholders. At a stock price of $145.68 Hershey stock has lost 0.9 percent year-to-date resulting in a market cap of $30.3 billion for the company.

Earlier this week Hershey peer J.M. Smucker Company announced a 2.3 percent dividend hike. Another well known chocolate maker is Mondelez International, known for brands such as Cadbury, Côte d'Or, Milka and Oreo.

The Hershey Company is a global chocolate and non-chocolate confectionery manufacturer. Hershey's products include chocolate, sweets, mints, gum and other snacks such as spreads, meat snacks, bars and snack bites and mixes, popcorn and protein bars and cookies. The company's brands include Hershey’s, Reese’s, Kisses, Jolly Rancher, Almond Joy, Brookside, barkTHINS, Cadbury, Good & Plenty, Heath, Kit Kat®, Lancaster, Payday, Rolo®, Twizzlers, Whoppers and York. Hershey's gum and mint products include Ice Breakers mints and chewing gum, Breathsavers mints and Bubble Yum bubble gum. Other brands are Krave meat snack products, Popwell half-popped corn snacks, ready-to-eat SkinnyPop popcorn, baked and trans fat free Pirate's Booty snacks and Oatmega and Paqui. Hershey was incorporated under the laws of the State of Delaware on October 24, 1927 as a successor to a business founded in 1894 by Milton S. Hershey.