Pam Gesford, The Hershey Company

Pam Gesford’s award-winning presentation, Rheology of Sweets was given Monday, April 11, 2022, at the 75^th Annual Production Conference. The award will be presented at the 76^th Annual Production Conference dinner April 18, 2023, at the Lancaster Marriott at Penn Square.

Pam is a staff scientist for The Hershey Company where she works in sweets and refreshment product development, developing mostly new Jolly Rancher and Twizzler products. She is an active member in the PMCA serving on the Program Committee. She has taught for the PMCA panning course, NCA panning short course and resident course as well as previously for the Triton College Confectionery Course. Pam was inducted into the Candy Hall of Fame in 2021.

Throughout her career, Pam has considered herself very privileged to work with and get to know the fine people who work in the candy industry. Pam began her career in the candy industry at Hershey Foods. Working in product development, she was involved in chocolate and non-chocolate confectionery products from bench-top concept development to production start-ups. Pam then went on to become ReTD manager for the former Herman Goelitz Candy Co., now the Jelly Belly Candy Company. She formulated new flavors for the Jelly Belly line as well as numerous other confections for the Goelitz Confections brand. She also was technical service manager for the food and confectionery division at Colorcon, where she provided technical assistance to customers and led the product development efforts for new specialty products. Pam was also technology manager for Perfetti Van Melle USA, Inc where she ran both ReTD and the quality assurance departments. Before rejoining The Hershey Company, Pam was a senior consultant with Knechtel, Inc. where she assisted clients with R&D, technical training and troubleshooting.

Pam graduated from Pennsylvania State University with a bachelor’s degree in biology. She also attended additional food science courses at PSU.