It all started with Frank Mars back in 1911 when he and his wife Ethel started making and selling a variety of butter-cream candies from the spotless kitchen of their home in Tacoma, Washington. In Tacoma, Washington, back in 1911, Frank Mars and his wife Ethel began a candy business by making and selling a variety of butter cream candies.

Then in 1920, Forest Mars and his son went to a local drugstore and Forest had an idea. Why not manufacture a candy bar using malted milk and a version of chocolate? This idea became the MILKY WAY bar.

In 1920, after visiting a local drugstore with his son Forrest, he thought what a good idea it would be if they could produce a version of chocolate, malted milk that could be enjoyed anywhere. The result was the MILKY WAY bar - known in Europe as the MARS bar. It was an immediate success.

In the 1930’s while working in Europe, Forest came up with another winning idea which was to prevent chocolate from melting by giving it a protective coating. The idea became M&M’s candies. Their famous slogan “It melts in your mouth not on your hands” solved a problem for the US forces of candy they provided in their rations melting before it got to the mouths of soldiers. Purchase of his M&M candies by the US government to be part of the rations of the forces during the war ensured the success of this new non melting candy.

In the same depression years of the ‘30s, Mars was the pioneer in the pet food industry in Europe. He employed nutritional science and modern manufacturing techniques to pet food. Fast forwarding to the present another innovation has been developed by Mars which was to put meat petfood in pouches. This product is sold under the brands of Pedigree and Whiskas

Modern manufacturing techniques were also employed for the first time to parboil rice in large quantities. In 1946 the new rice product Uncle Ben’s was launched and it became America’s top selling brand of packaged long grain rice.

Mars has a direct presence in over 60 countries over 100 countries have the Mars products available for sale.

This entry was posted by Bill Tusan on Monday, March 6th, 2006 at 9:03 pm and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.