Mondelez has reportedly made an offer to buy Hershey and now the stock is spiking

Snack food giant Mondelez has made an offer to acquire Hershey, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Following the report, shares of Hershey were up as much as 21%, to north of $117 per share. Mondelez shares were up about 1.7%.

Hershey has a market cap of about $25 billion; Mondelez has a market cap of about $68 billion.

CNBC's David Faber added that talks between the company have been going on for a few months. According to WSJ, Mondelez has pledged to protect jobs in the event of a merger, locate its headquarters in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and rename the company Hershey.

Activist investor Nelson Peltz Bill Ackman's Pershing Square both hold sizeable stakes in Mondelez. Ackman first took a $5.5 billion stake in Mondelez in August 2015, but has since sold down his share in the snack maker, unloading about 20 million shares in March.

Mondelez has long been a target of activist investors, with Peltz publicly agitating in 2013 for Pepsi to acquire Mondelez in a more than $65 billion deal.

Following this report, shares of other food companies including Kellogg (+4%), Campbell Soup (+3.6%), Hain Celestial (+2.1%), General Mills (+4.2%), and PepsiCo (+2%), were all higher.

Here's the spike in Hershey stock in morning trade on Thursday.

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More to come ...