Popular candy company Hershey (NYSE:$HSY) released its second quarter earnings report on Wednesday, July 26. The company saw better-than-expected profits thanks to some of Hershey’s cost-cutting efforts, as well as continuously steady demand for Hershey’s products in the United States. North American sales alone went up by 2.2% to see $1.47 billion in the second quarter.

In February, Hershey announced its cost-cutting plans via cutting its global workforce by about 15% in an attempt to build back demand in North America. The job cuts were done under the leadership of new CEO Michele Buck.

Besides cost-cutting plans, Hershey has been working to introduce new products like Snack Mix, Snack Bites, and Hershey’s Cookie Layer Crunch bars to try and gain an upper hand over other candy-making companies in North America. Additionally, Hershey acquired the barkTHINS brand. The acquisition added 0.5% to Hershey’s sales in this quarter, said the company.

Hershey’s saw an impressive earnings of $1.09 per share, excluding some items. That’s about 19 cents more than the average analyst expectation of $0.90 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Net income was $203.5 million, or $0.95 per share, which is a rise from the $146 million, or $0.68 per share, Hershey posted in 2016’s second quarter. Net sales gained 1.5% to see $1.67 billion, pretty close to the average analyst expectation of $1.66 billion.

Along with strong quarterly earnings, investors of Hershey received another piece of good news today: the company announced that it’s raised its quarterly dividend. For its Class A shares, quarterly dividend is now 65.6 cents and its Class B shares now have a quarterly dividend of 59.6 cents.

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