雅虎香港電視

At the 2023 Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting See’s Candies CEO Pat Egan spoke with Yahoo Finance’s Executive Editor Brian Sozzi about growth at the candy company, his overall economic outlook, and what it’s like to work with Warren Buffett and the management team at Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A). 

Egan said he doesn’t see a slowdown in consumer spending in the U.S. ‘Our business is up, our traffic is up.. And our e-commerce business has really blown up in the last two years.’ Egan added that See’s Candies has benefitted from the pandemic trend of consumer snacking ‘we all need that special treat. The last few years have been very hard, and it's kind of a respite. It's  a way for people to relax,’ he said.

On inflation and increased costs for the chocolate business and for consumers, Egan said he was forced to raise prices due to increased input costs for ingredients like milk, butter, and sugar. ‘Sugar has more than doubled. Sugar is more expensive in the United States of America than any other place on the planet. It's a price controlled kind of a scheme in our view… butter is up over a hundred percent in the last year. So yes, we have to cover all of that,’ Egan added.

Key video moments:

00:01:02 what it’s like to work with Warren Buffett

00:01:24 consumer spending trends

00:03:12 inflation impact