Mars Inc.

• 1. Introduction

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  In Chicago, a commuter rail station bears a single plain name, Mars. It stands beside a candy factory belonging to Mars, Incorporated, the maker of M&M's and Twix. The company is entirely owned by the Mars family. In 2022 it reported US$45 billion in annual sales, and Forbes ranked it the fourth-largest privately held company in the United States. For much of its modern life it also kept itself remarkably quiet. How did a candy shop that failed in its first city grow into a corporation that owns veterinary hospitals? Why did its owners guard the business so closely? And what did outsiders find when they began asking where the cocoa comes from?

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• 2. A Failed Candy Shop

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  Franklin Clarence Mars, known as Frank, learned to hand dip candy from his mother and was already selling it by the age of 19. On the 23rd of June 1911 he opened the Mars Candy Factory in Tacoma, Washington, with Ethel V. Mars, his second wife. The factory sold fresh candy wholesale. The venture ultimately failed, because a better established business named Brown & Haley was operating in the same city.

  By 1920 Mars had returned to his home state of Minnesota. In Minneapolis that year he founded Mar-O-Bar Co., the earliest form of the company that exists today. It was later incorporated there as Mars, Incorporated.

  A conversation at a soda fountain in 1923 changed the business. Forrest Mars Sr., the son of Frank and his first wife, Ethel G. Mars, was discussing his father's struggles. His own drink, a chocolate malted milk milkshake, gave him an idea. He suggested building a candy bar on that flavor. Frank took the advice and used Minneapolis nougat, a neglected ingredient. The Milky Way bar was advertised as a "chocolate malted milk in a candy bar" and became the best-selling candy bar.

  In 1929 Frank moved the company to Chicago and started full production in a plant that still exists today. He created the Snickers bar in 1930 and first sold it in American markets. The 3 Musketeers bar arrived in 1932, the same year a family disagreement sent Forrest across the Atlantic.

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• 3. Forrest Abroad

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  In 1932 Forrest Mars received a check from his father, along with the foreign rights to market the Milky Way. He moved to Great Britain and founded his own firm, Mars Limited, in the town of Slough. He set up what was then the European headquarters on the new Slough Trading Estate, and it remains the British headquarters today. There he made the first Mars bar, based on the American Milky Way. It launched to great success.

  Across the Atlantic, the bar sold as Milky Way in Europe is called the 3 Musketeers in America. Snickers was marketed in Ireland and the United Kingdom as Marathon until 1990. Galaxy in the Middle East is known as Dove in America. Starburst began in Britain under the name Opal Fruits, and Skittles was first sold there too. Twix and Topic were British brands as well.

  Frank Mars died in 1934, and ownership of the Chicago company passed to his widow's family. Ethel V. Mars served as president. Day-to-day activity was run by her half-brother, William Kruppenbacher. In gradual phases, Forrest took control of his father's Chicago company by 1964 and merged the two entities into one Mars.

  In 1980 Forrest, bored with retirement, started a premium chocolate business in Las Vegas called Ethel M. It grew into a chain of shops named Ethel M Chocolates. In 1984 the merged company moved its headquarters to McLean, Virginia. Forrest's other great project had nothing to do with candy.

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• 4. Pets and Vets

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  By 1991 Mars controlled 60 percent of the pet food market, in both volume and value, and Whiskas was the number one brand. Forrest Mars is credited with starting the pet food industry in Europe. His company bought Kal Kan, and he renamed the dog food Pedigree and the cat food Whiskas. By 1994 Mars was the leading pet food company in the world, with $4 billion in sales.

  In February 2003 Mars acquired Aquarium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which had been incorporated in 1964. In 2007 it was renamed Mars Fishcare, Inc. It supplies home aquarium and pond products under names including API, RENA, AQUARIAN and PondCare. In June 2007 Mars also bought Doane Petcare Company, which significantly increased its position in the American dry pet food category.

  Also in 2007, the company introduced Wisdom Panel, a genetic test for dogs that uses cheek swabs. It identifies breed breakdown, traits and health risks. In 2018 Mars Petcare acquired Genoscoper Laboratories, a Finnish animal molecular diagnostics company, to lay the basis for precision healthcare for pets. Wisdom Panel testing expanded to cats in mid 2021.

  The veterinary side began in 2007, when Mars bought a significant stake in the Banfield Pet Hospital chain. In October 2015 it acquired BluePearl Veterinary Partners, which made Mars Petcare the largest pet nutrition and veterinary care provider in the world. In January 2017 came the US$7.7 billion acquisition of VCA Inc., a Los Angeles-based animal hospital chain. In June 2018 the international arm acquired the Linnaeus Group, a leading veterinary provider in the United Kingdom. The company's listing counts 1,054 Banfield sites, 917 VCA sites, 280 AniCura sites and 148 Linnaeus sites.

  Fortune magazine named Mars one of the top 100 companies to work for in 2013. It cited the example that employees of the pet food division can take their dogs to work.

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• 5. Big Deals

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  On the 28th of April 2008, Mars and Berkshire Hathaway Incorporated announced a buyout of Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, the world's largest chewing gum producer. The all-cash price was $23 billion. Together the two companies generated sales of over $30 billion in 2008. Mars's American confectionery division, Masterfoods USA, formerly M&M Mars, was merged into Wrigley. Its chocolate products were reorganized into a new subsidiary, Mars Chocolate North America, LLC.

  During World War II, Wrigley sold its eponymous gum only to soldiers, while Orbit gum was sold to the public. Orbit was abandoned shortly after the war. About 30 years later it came back to America.

  In 2016 Mars merged the Wrigley and chocolate segments into Mars Wrigley Confectionery. Global offices stayed in Chicago, while American offices moved to Hackettstown and Newark, New Jersey. Wrigley CEO Martin Ravdan led the combined business until Andrew Clarke replaced him in September 2018. In February 2016 the company also said it would stop using artificial colors in its candy.

  Mars bought the Lucas candy company in 2001, but in 2004 it discontinued the brand after high amounts of lead were found inside its candies.

  In 1982 Mars created FLAVIA in response to high demand for coffee in the United Kingdom. It was marketed as Dimension 3 until 1989. FLAVIA reached France and Germany in 1986, Japan in 1992, the United States in 1996 and Canada in 1997. In 2018 the drinks division was sold to Lavazza.

  In November 2020 Mars took full ownership of the snack company Kind North America for $5 billion. In December 2022 it acquired Trü Frü, a whole-fruit snacking brand headquartered in Utah. That formed a health and wellness sub-brand that also includes Kind and Nature's Bakery. In November 2023 Mars purchased Hotel Chocolat for £534 million. The brand stays independent, with no recipe changes and no Mars products in its stores. The deal was complete by the 25th of January 2024.

  On the 14th of August 2024 Mars announced it would acquire Kellanova, known as Kellogg's until 2023, for $83.50 per share in cash. The total consideration was $35.9 billion, including assumed net leverage. Analysts described it as the largest deal in consumer packaged goods since Kraft and Heinz merged in 2015. On the 11th of December 2025 Mars completed the purchase, after regulators backtracked on earlier concerns and the European Union gave approval.

  Kellanova was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange, and its CEO Steve Cahillane stepped down. The business was folded into a rebranded Mars Snacking, whose logo uses the Kellogg K and the Wrigley G. The enlarged division operates across more than 145 markets.

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• 6. Where It Is Made

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  In 1963 a large factory opened in Veghel in the Netherlands, and today it has the biggest production volume of any Mars factory. It is one of the biggest chocolate factories in the world. Most confectionery for Europe came from Veghel and from Slough. Slough had two factories, on Liverpool Road and Dundee Road. The Liverpool Road plant closed in 2007, with Twix production moving to the Netherlands and Starburst production moving to the Czech Republic.

  The major production plant for Mars confectionery in Australia is in Ballarat, Victoria. In the United States the company has 22 manufacturing facilities, stretching from Hackettstown, New Jersey, to Galena, Kansas. Its Canadian facilities are in Bolton and Newmarket, Ontario.

  The newest American chocolate plant, the first in 23 years, was established in 2014 at a cost of $270 million. It is in Topeka, Kansas.

  In early 2022 the company announced that it intended to close the Chicago factory in 2024. The building will remain in the hands of residents of Chicago's Galewood neighborhood.

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• 7. Secrecy and Scrutiny

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  In 1993 a reporter for the Washington Post Magazine was allowed to watch the letter M being applied to M&M's, something "no outsider had ever before been invited to observe." The article was a rare raising of the veil. In 1999 the company did not acknowledge that Forrest Mars Sr. had died, or that he had ever worked for it. By 2019, the company had aggressively moved away from its model of secrecy through the media and sponsorships.

  Spending on lobbying shows a company that was not silent in Washington. Mars spent more than $1.8 million on lobbying during 2008, almost all of it at Patton Boggs, where it has long been one of the largest lobbying clients. It also spent $10,000 at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. In 2009 it hired Ernst & Young to lobby on corporate and international tax issues, including changes proposed by the Obama administration. It spent another $1,655,000 that year.

  In 2007 People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals criticized Mars for funding laboratory experiments on mice, rats, guinea pigs and rabbits. The group alleges the experiments are inhumane and violate the company's own policies. One study, with the Salk Institute, examined angiogenesis and spatial memory in mice fed a diet that included epicatechin, a plant-derived flavonoid. Some of the mice had a running wheel for two hours a day. Another experiment used the Morris water maze, in which mice swam in water mixed with white paint that hid its depth. Mars contends the study was legally required for it to make flavonoid-related health claims. It found that epicatechin improved memory and angiogenesis, more so with exercise.

  From the 1st of May 2007, many Mars products made in the United Kingdom became unsuitable for vegetarians. The company had announced it would use whey made with animal rennet, a byproduct of veal, instead of rennet made by microorganisms. The affected products included Mars, Twix, Snickers, Maltesers, Bounty, Minstrels and Milky Way. The Vegetarian Society asked British vegetarians to register their protests, which generated extensive press. Mars abandoned the plan shortly after and switched to all-vegetarian sources.

  In May 2020 Mars sued JAB Holding. It claimed that Jacek Szarzynski, a former JAB executive, stole confidential documents and passed them to the owner of Pret a Manger and Panera Bread. According to the lawsuit, over 6,000 internal documents were illegally downloaded. They included detailed financial results, strategic planning documents and potential acquisition targets.

  On the 1st of September 2023 Ukraine's National Agency on Corruption Prevention put PepsiCo and Mars on its list of international sponsors of the war. Both had declared a reduction of their business in Russia. The agency noted that they continue to operate there despite the cessation of advertising and production of their products.

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• 8. Cocoa Questions

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  In 2019 Mars announced that it could not guarantee its chocolate was free from child slave labor, because it could trace only 24% of its purchasing back to the farm level. The Washington Post noted that a commitment made in 2001 to eradicate such practices within four years had not been kept. The deadline of 2005 passed, as did the revised deadlines of 2008 and 2010. The result was not likely to be achieved by 2020 either.

  The company had made moves along the way. In 2009 it announced it would work toward buying cocoa only from suppliers meeting environmental, labor and production standards, and TransFair USA applauded the move. In 2010 Mars received the U.S. Secretary of State's Award for Corporate Excellence. In April 2010 it launched MyCocoaPaper, which claims to give economic opportunities to women and families in Indonesia by making paper from cocoa bark and recycled office paper. In 2011 Mars and Fairtrade International agreed to introduce the first Fairtrade labeled Mars product, and Maltesers reached stores in the United Kingdom and Ireland in 2012.

  In 2021 eight former child slaves from Mali filed a class action lawsuit alleging that Mars aided and abetted their enslavement on cocoa plantations in Ivory Coast. The suit also named Nestlé, Cargill, Barry Callebaut, Olam International, the Hershey Company and Mondelez International. In June 2021 the United States Supreme Court dismissed it, because the abuse happened outside the United States and the group lacked standing to sue.

  On the 2022 Chocolate Scorecard, Mars earned a yellow rating, the second highest of four, labeled "Starting to implement good policies." In its own scorecard, Mars states that it has traced its cocoa to 132,000 of the farms that supply it. A CBS television news investigation in 2023 nonetheless found children as young as five working in the Ghana supply chain of Mars, harvesting cocoa for brands such as Snickers and M&Ms.

  In September 2017 the nonprofit Mighty Earth reported that much of the cocoa in chocolate from Mars and other major companies was grown illegally in national parks and protected areas in Ivory Coast and Ghana. In several of those areas, 90% or more of the land had been converted to cocoa. Less than four percent of Ivory Coast remains densely forested. Its elephant population fell from several hundred thousand to about 200-400. On the 2022 scorecard Mars scored the second highest of four on deforestation and climate, and the third on agrochemical management.

  A 2025 report by the NewClimate Institute and Carbon Market Watch named Mars among major food manufacturers that had failed to set a methane reduction target. It noted that Mars had also failed to set a timeline to source only deforestation-free cocoa.

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