MARS, INCORPORATED

'Mars, Incorporated' is a world-wide manufacturer of confectionery, pet food and other food products with US$18 billion in annual sales in 2005. Headquartered in McLean, Virginia, USA, the company is entirely owned by the Mars family, making it one of the largest privately owned U.S. corporations. Most of its activities in the US are part of a division known as 'Masterfoods USA', based in Hackettstown, New Jersey.
The European Division, known as 'Masterfoods Europe', is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. The name Masterfoods originally came from a food business founded by the Lewis family in 1949 in Australia, and acquired by Mars in 1967.
The company has announced that by the end of 2007 all business units will adopt the name 'Mars' as their names. 'Masterfoods' will cease to be a business name but presumably will continue as the brand name of food products in Australia. It is not clear why Masterfoods was replacing Mars as a business name in some parts of the world.
Mars is most famous for its ''Milky Way'', ''Mars Bar'', ''M&M's'', ''Twix'', ''Skittles'' and ''Snickers'' confectionery, as well as pet foods (such as the well-known ''Whiskas'', ''Chappy'' and ''Pedigree'' brands), human foods (including ''Uncle Ben's'' and European Pasta Sauce Brand ''Dolmio'') and non-confectionery snack foods (including ''Combos''). Mars' purchase of Doane Petcare Company in June 2006 significantly increased its position in the US dry pet food category.

Contents

Company history

Effem Inc

Mars Limited

Negative Publicity

Products

See also

Notes and references

External links

Company history

The company was founded in Tacoma, Washington, in 1911, when Frank Clarence Mars and his wife Ethel started producing and selling candy. In 1920, he was inspired by a popular type of milkshakes^[2] and in 1923 the ''Milky Way'' bar was born.^[3] The company grew quickly.
Mars is still a family owned business, belonging to the Mars family. The company is famous for its secrecy. Through the years, repeated attempts to get inside the company have taken place but with no avail. In 1992, a writer from ''The Washington Post'' was allowed limited access into the heart of the company. When the final article appeared, it supposedly talked about some of the more embarrassing and forgotten moments in the company's history. In 1999, for example, the company did not acknowledge that Forrest Mars, Sr., had died or that he had worked for the company. Two Mars staff for trial on fraud charges Liz Chong
The company argues that due to private ownership, there is no need to account to anyone but themselves. In the same spirit, Mars, Inc., does not cooperate with many widely publicized organizations, such as Fairtrade, arguing that their own internal standards, rooted in the 5 principles deliver even better results. An example is the company's Cocoa Sustainability initiative.^[4]
Despite its secrecy, Mars Incorporated has developed a reputation across its leading markets to be excellent training grounds for managers. In the UK, for instance, many CEOs of large companies learned their trade at Mars, Inc. Recently, the company caught on to that and re-branded their employer brand to "Mars - The Ultimate Business School".^[5]
Moving into fourth generation family ownership, the company recently passed from family leadership into non-family leadership; however, the business is still owned by the family. The global CEO of Masterfoods is Paul Michaels. Michaels is part of a new group of non-family management that has taken over since the retirement of John and Forrest Mars, Jr. The family now oversees the business as a council or board of directors.
Manufacturing facilities are located in Albany, Georgia; Burr Ridge, Chicago and Mattoon, Illinois; Cleveland, Tennessee; Columbia, South Carolina; Columbus, Ohio; Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania; Greenville, Mississippi; Greenville and Waco, Texas; Hackettstown, New Jersey; Henderson and Reno, Nevada; and Vernon, California.
Until sold in June 2006, a division of Mars known as Mars Electronics International produced vending machines for both hot and cold drinks (through its Four Square division), and bill validators and coin acceptors. They were one of the most common bill validators found in the US. Four Square comprises the ''FLAVIA'' and ''KLIX'' brands. ''FLAVIA'' operates within the US, UK and Japanese markets, while ''KLIX'' operates within UK, Germany and France.

Effem Inc

'Effem Inc' is the Canadian Division of Mars, Inc. The company is based in Bolton, Ontario.

Mars Limited

'Mars Limited' is the name of the British branch of Mars, Inc. The company is based in Slough, UK. Mars brands manufactured for the UK market but not for the US include ''Maltesers'' and ''Tunes''.
In 1932, Forrest Mars, Sr., opened what was then Mars (Europe) headquarters, and remains Mars (UK) headquarters in Slough, UK on the then-new Slough Trading Estate after a disagreement with his father, Frank C. Mars. In this factory, he produced the first Mars Bar, based on the American Milky Way.^[6]
Many brands which were later introduced in the US were first created and sold in Britain; these include Starburst, Skittles, Twix, Snickers and Topic.
The bar formerly sold in the US as the ''Mars Bar'' is now marketed in that country as the ''Snickers Almond Bar'' and is not sold consistently in the UK where it has appeared with other special editions that are released occasionally.
Confusingly, the ''Milky Way'' in Europe and worldwide is known as the ''3 Musketeers'' in America. Similarly, the ''Snickers'' bar was previously marketed in Britain and the Republic of Ireland as ''Marathon'' until 1990; ''M&M's'' were known as ''Treets'' in the UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands, also until 1990; ''Dove'' is known as ''Galaxy'' in the UK and the Middle East; and ''Starburst'' was known in the UK and Ireland as ''Opal Fruits'' until 1998.
The two factories in Slough were located on Liverpool Road and Dundee Road; the one on Liverpool Road closed in 2007, with Twix and Starburst production moving to the Netherlands and the Czech Republic.^[7]
In 1963 a large factory was opened in Veghel, The Netherlands. This factory has currently the biggest production volume of Mars factories and is even the biggest chocolate factory of the world. Most confectionery products for Europe are produced in Slough, UK and Veghel, The Netherlands.
Many confectionery products for the Australian market are produced in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia.

Negative Publicity

During the 2007 Super Bowl, Snickers, a Mars, Inc. brand, ran an ad campaign with NFL approval and logo, portraying two men who accidentally kiss each other while biting into a candy bar and respond with violence. The ad's imagery created negative publicity, including statements from HRC and GLAAD, asking that the ads and related website be pulled.
From 1 May 2007, many Mars products made in the UK became unsuitable for vegetarians and possibly faith groups such as Muslims, Jews and Hindus. The company announced that it would be using whey made with animal rennet (material from a calf's stomach lining, and a byproduct of veal) instead of using rennet made by micro organisms in products including Mars, Twix, Snickers, Maltesers, Bounty, Minstrels and Milky Way products.^[8] The response from many thousands of consumers, particularly the Vegetarian Society's request for UK vegetarians to register their protests with Mars, generated a lot of press, and caused the company to abandon these plans shortly thereafter.^[9] It has reportedly decided to switch to all-vegetarian sources in the near future in the UK.^[10][11]

Products

Many of Mars' products are famous-name brands, including:

★ ''3 Musketeers

★ ''AquaDrops''

★ ''Bounty''

★ ''Celebrations''

★ ''Dove Chocolate''

★ ''Fling''

★ ''Flyte''

★ ''Galaxy''

★ ''Kudos''

★ ''Lockets''

★ ''M&M's''

★ ''Maltesers''

★ ''Mars Bar''

★ ''Mars Delight''

★ ''Mars Planets (newly inroduced in UK)

★ ''M-Azing''

★ ''Milky Way''

★ ''Minstrels

★ ''Pedigree''

★ ''Schmackos''

★ ''Skittles''

★ ''Snicker's Marathon Energy Bar''

★ ''Snickers''

★ ''Starburst''

★ ''Topic''

★ ''Twix''

★ ''Whiskas''
Other confections, no longer produced, include:

★ ''Bisc & Bars

★ ''Pacers''

★ ''Royals''

★ ''Spangles''

See also

★ Big Chocolate

Notes and references

1. Yahoo! Finance: Mars, Incorporated Company Profile
2. Mars.com: The Mars Story
3. Milky Way Brand Timeline
4. Mars, Incorporated: Cocoa Sustainability, A Commitment to the Future
5. Mars - The Ultimate Business School
6. Slough History Online: Themes - "Smoke, Steam and (Computer) Chips: Mars - the Chocolate Planet"
7. BBC.co.uk: "Mars cuts 700 from UK workforce"
8. BBC.co.uk: "Mars starts using animal products" May 14, 2007
9. BBC.co.uk: "Mars bars get veggie status back" May 20, 2007
10. Telegraph: "Mars in damage limitation exercise" May 21, 2007
11. Mars UK press release Aug, 2007: "Introduction of vegetarian labelling on our leading UK confectionery brands"

External links

★ Official site

★ Masterfoods site

★ Pedigree Petfoods UK

★ Masterfoods UK

★ Pedigree Petfoods Canada

★ Pedigree Netherlands

★ Effem Inc (Canadian Division)

★ Company profile from Yahoo!