Hershey opens Malaysian R&D facilities, its largest outside US

The Hershey Company has opened a 10,400-square-foot facility housing the R&D laboratories, a packaging development plant, and a sensory area in Johor, Malaysia, as it seeks to develop and launch new products in international markets.

The Malaysian site, which has become one of Hershey’s largest R&D facilities outside the US, will act as a central hub for the company’s operations across the AEMEA region within countries in the Asia Pacific, including India and China, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa,

The new R&D center reflects the company’s ongoing commitment to understanding the preferences of consumers across the markets, said Hershey’s VP, AEMEA, and India, Herjit Bhalla.

Hershey’s senior director of R&D, international, Philippe Zehnder, added that the investment is another example of how Hershey is continuing to reinvent confectionery science through internal and external innovation.

The new facility will allow Hershey's to obtain a better understanding of its customers by allowing them to create, test, and produce some of the region's most inventive goods.