A Lesson in Failure: The Rise of the Mars
Candy Company The legendary Roald Dahl’s book Charlie
& Chocolate Factory from 1964 (and its subsequent two film adaptations from 1971 and 2005) told
the story of a magical candy factory and its eccentric and mysterious owner Willy Wonka. A chocolate river, gum that is a whole turkey
dinner, never-ending gobstoppers, and, of course, the singing and dancing oompa-loompas
are just a few of the surprises that waited inside the doors of the famously secretive
factory. Of course, in a real life candy empire, there
are a lot more failures, hard work, father/son disputes, and an unfortunate lack of oompa-loompas. What follows is the tale of how the Mars candy
company went from a small candy business started by a polio stricken teen to one of the largest
candy companies in the world. The story of Mars candy starts in Newport,
Minnesota (southeast of St. Paul) with the birth of Franklin Clarence Mars on September
23, 1883. Frank was the son of a gristmill operator
(grinding grains into flour) who only moved to Minnesota from Pennsylvania with his wife,
Alva, months prior to Frank’s birth. When Frank was little, he battled polio which
left him disabled the rest of his life. As you might imagine from this, he was rather
immobile as a kid, so he spent a lot of time watching his mother bake and cook, including
watching her go through the difficult and tedious process of making fresh chocolates. He got so into candy, that he began selling
Taylor’s Molasses Chips and creating his own candy recipes while still in high school. By the time, he graduated, he had a pretty
successful career going selling candy wholesale to stores in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. In 1902, he married Ethel G. Kissack, a schoolteacher. About a year later, Frank’s first son – Forrest
– was born. It was also around this time that the candy
market became oversaturated. With the Hershey Bar having been first introduced
in 1900, the United States’ first mass produced candy bar, a host of other locally owned candy
chains popped up. The competition was fierce, especially in
the Minneapolis area. Brands like Chick-O-Stick, Pearson’s, and
Cherry Hump started in Minnesota and all are still around today. So, it wasn’t a huge surprise when Frank’s
wholesale business went under. To add a little lemon juice to his fresh wound,
in 1910, Ethel divorced Frank for being unable to support her. She also won sole custody of Forest, who she
promptly sent to live with her parents in Saskatchewan, Canada. The ugliness of the divorce wasn’t a good
omen for Frank and Forrest’s future relationship. They would rarely see each other until years
later, with tensions still running high. Frank, never a man to get too down, tried
again, this time marrying another Ethel – Ethel V. Healy – and moving to Seattle, Washington
to go back into the candy business. He failed again with wholesaling and creditors
started taking his stuff. He moved thirty miles south to Tacoma and
again struggled. In 1920, Frank and Ethel the second moved
back to Minnesota to be closer to their families. At this time, Frank had only four hundred
dollars to his name. But despite his constant struggles with candy,
he continued to try, this time making his own at three am every morning with his wife
doing the selling. The candy bar was the Mar-O-Bar, made out
of chocolate, nuts and caramel. It was tough, but they started to make a little
money and then a good amount more. After years of trying, Franks Mars had finally
carved out a somewhat lucrative career in candy. They were even able to buy a house and would
have been comfortable being local candy suppliers. But the invention of the Milky Way changed
all of that. It was also around this time that Frank’s
son, Forrest, was establishing a mighty fine business sense. After attending college at Berkeley and, later,
Yale, he became a traveling salesmen for Camel cigarettes. As the legend goes, in Chicago one night Forrest
went a little overboard plastering ads across the city for Camel. He was arrested, but his estranged father
bailed him out. While at a soda counter, Forrest looked into
his chocolate malt glass and said, “’Why don’t you put a chocolate-malted drink in
a candy bar?’” Nougat had been invented in Italy in the 15th
century (see: What Nougat is Made Of), but a variation of whipped egg whites and sugar
syrup (instead of the normal honey) was invented by the Pendergast Candy Company in the early
20th century. They were based in, yes, Minneapolis and the
nougat became known as “Minneapolis Nougat.” Frank Mars had started using nougat in his
candies in 1920. In fact, he called his company “the Nougat
House” for a time. But this time, in 1923, he mixed it with chocolate
and put caramel on top of it. Using his cosmic name as inspiration, he called
it a “Milky Way.” It was introduced in that same year. Within a year, Mars’ sales jumped by ten-fold,
grossing about $800,000 (about $11 million today). Said Forrest later, “that damn thing sold
with no advertising.” Mars Company quickly launched into orbit. They moved their headquarters to near Chicago
and by 1928, just five years after introducing the Milky Way, they were making $20 million
in gross revenue (about $273 million today). In 1930, they introduced the Snickers bar
(named after Frank’s favorite horse) and, soon after, the Three Musketeers. Frank started living in grand fashion, buying
fast cars, big houses, and a horse farm for his wife. Meanwhile, Forrest didn’t like what he saw. Knowing that there was more profit, and security,
to be had by cutting costs and expanding the business into other areas, he tried to convince
his father to give him a third of the company and let him expand to Canada (Forrest’s
home country). Frank refused and Forrest, later recounting
a conversation with his father, ”I told my dad to stick his business up his ass. If he didn’t want to give me a third right
then, I said, I’m leaving.” In the end, Frank gave Forrest $50,000 and
foreign rights to the Milky Way to basically leave his company alone and move to Europe. Fortunately for the company, that is exactly
what Forrest did. While in Europe, Forrest learned from Switzerland’s
Nestle chocolate company about how to make good, sweet, European-style candy. He tweaked the recipe of the Milky Way to
make it more sweet. He called it the “Mars Bar.” It sold even better than the Milky Way in
Europe, amassing Forrest his own considerable fortune. Frank passed away in 1934, at the young age
of fifty. His wife, Ethel, took over the company, then
Frank’s half-brother , William L. (Slip) Kruppenbacher when Ethel was too ill to run
it. In 1945, Ethel passed away. The company moved to the next of kin, the
business savvy Forrest. Forrest took over the company and immediately
diversified, turning Mars into more than a candy company. He worked with a European pet food supplier
and, eventually, created Whiskas Catfood. He worked with a Texas salesmen to create
ready-to-make rice. That became Uncle Ben’s Rice. Besides being a brilliant money-making business
man, he was known to have a violent temper and a demand for perfection. For example, he was known to throw chocolate
bars out of windows if he felt they didn’t meet his quality expectations. Remarkably quickly, he turned a regional candy
maker into a world-wide food empire. Today, it is his three kids who are reaping
the benefits. John, Forrest Jr., and Jacqueline. They are among the richest people in the world,
each owning a third of Mars, Inc, which currently employs over 75,000 people and is valued at
around $70 billion, making it approximately the sixth largest privately held company in
the world. In 1941, Forrest Mars Sr. struck a deal with
Bruce Murrie, son of famed Hershey president William Murrie, to develop a hard shelled
candy with chocolate at the center. Mars needed Hershey’s chocolate because
he anticipated there would be a chocolate shortage in the pending war, which turned
out to be correct. As such, the deal gave Murrie a 20% stake
in the newly developed M&M; this stake was later bought out by Mars when chocolate rationing
ended at the end of the war. The name of the candy thus stood for “Mars
& Murrie,” the co-creators of the candy. The “M&M” was modeled after a candy Forrest
Mars, Sr. encountered while in Spain during his quasi-exile from Mars in the 1930s. During the Spanish civil war there, he observed
soldiers eating chocolate pellets with a hard shell of tempered chocolate. This prevented the candies from melting, which
was essential when included in soldiers rations as they were. Not surprisingly, during WWII, production
of M&Ms skyrocketed due to the fact that they were sold to the military and included as
part of United States’ soldiers’ rations. This also worked as great marketing; when
the soldiers came home, many were hooked.
He used a picture of Warren Buffet as John F Mars.
Glad to see Moby is keeping busy.
Fascinating video. Explains why Mars bars are so hugely popular in Europe/UK, but not at all popular in the US.
His wife would be a whistleblower
The Mars bar is alive and strong in Canada. A popular desert in a lot of restaurants is the deep fried mars bar. Some people think "ew that sounds gross." Trust me humanity, it is the exact opposite of gross. It is the closest thing to shooting heroin, in food form.
This was well done. Thanks for sharing this video /u/Kopextacy.
This made me miss the experience of going to blockbusters, just the excitement that went along with picking out candy and movies for the night...