| Type | Confection |
|---|---|
| Owner | Mars, Incorporated |
| Introduced | 1932 |
Mars (also Mars bar) is a chocolate bar manufactured by Mars, Incorporated. It was first manufactured in Slough, Berkshire in the United Kingdom in 1932 as a sweeter version of the US Milky Way bar which Mars, Inc. produced (not to be confused with the European version of Milky Way, which is similar to the US 3 Musketeers). It was advertised to the trade as being made with Cadbury's chocolate as 'couverture'.
In the United States, a different confection bears the Mars bar name. Featuring nougat, soft caramel, and almonds coated in milk chocolate, the American Mars bar was relaunched in 2010 after being discontinued in 2002.
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Chocolate bars sold as Mars vary in different regions of the world.[1] The American version was discontinued in 2002[2] and was replaced with the slightly different Snickers Almond.[2] The U.S. version of the Mars bar was relaunched in January 2010 and is initially being sold on an exclusive basis through Wal-Mart stores. The European version of the Mars bar is also sold in some United States grocery stores, usually being found in the imported or ethnic food sections. Regional European variations also exist, for example in Finland and other Nordic Countries, a standard Mars Bar weighs 47g.
In 1932, Forrest Mars, son of American candy maker Frank C. Mars, rented a factory in Slough and with a staff of twelve people, began manufacturing a chocolate bar consisting of nougat and caramel covered in milk chocolate, modelled after his father's Milky Way bar, which was already popular in the US.[3] Today the basic recipe is unaltered but the size of the bar and the proportions of the main components have changed over the years.
In 2002, the UK Mars bar was reformulated and repackaged. This made it sell for more money.[4] The nougat was made lighter, the chocolate on top became thinner, and the overall weight of the bar was reduced slightly. This was met with outrage from Mars purists, as in a sales pitch to local media in Slough, the change in ingredients was to follow the trend of its sister the Milky Way bar and 5 Star bars. Product designers at The Mars Candy Company in the US put this down to nostalgia over the past hugely popular Starbar, which also contained the same reinvented 'light whipped nougatine.' The packaging was also redesigned with a less-bold and a more cursive logo.
The famous slogan "A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play" was written by Francis Harmer- Brown and Peter Pfeffer in 1959 but often erroneously attributed to Murray Walker.[5] This was replaced with "Pleasure you can't measure", a re-branding intended to appeal to a more feminine, youthful market.[6]
Various sizes are made: miniature bars called "Fun Size" (19.7 g) and "Snack Time" (36.5 g) (both sold in multiple packs); a larger multi-pack size of 54 g; the regular sized single 58 g bar and a "king-size" 84 g bar which has since been replaced by "Mars Duo" (91 g) - a pack that contains 2 smaller bars instead of 1 large one. The regular 58 gram single bar contains 260 kilocalories.
In the second half of 2008, Mars UK reduced the size of regular bars from 62.5 g to the current 58 g. Although the reduction in size was not publicised at the time, Mars claimed the change was designed to help tackle the obesity crisis in the UK. The company later confirmed that the real reason for the change was triggered by rising costs.[7][8] In the UK, most Mars bars are still made at the Slough Trading Estate.
Mars bars have been available in Canada for several decades, including numerous limited edition flavours. Because of Canada's higher chocolate standards, the Canadian "Mars" is not considered a "chocolate bar" and is labelled instead as a "candy bar." In fact, unlike the American version, which labels the bar as "milk chocolate," the Canadian version makes no mention of chocolate on the front of the wrapper. Since mid-2006, all Mars bars produced in Canada are peanut-free. Mars is one of the few candy bars in North America for which no size of the product has any trace of peanuts. In February 2008, Mars Canada introduced a new variety of Mars bar called "Mars Caramel" to compete with the Cadbury Caramilk and Nestle Aero Caramel bars.
Several limited-edition variants of Mars bars have been released in various countries. (These have often been permanent releases in other countries). They include:
Other products have also been released using the Mars branding.
The Original Mars bar in "Believe" packaging was sold in the UK from 18 April 2006 until the end of the 2006 FIFA World Cup in July. "Believe" took prominence on the packaging ("Original Mars" appeared in smaller print) to indicate support for the England national football team. Advertising in other nations of the UK was tailored to reflect their own teams after the public condemnation, although in Scotland the "Believe" packaging was still used - causing negative publicity.[10]
On 30 July 2008, the Tasmanian government announced that it had secured a major sponsor, Mars for a bid to enter the Australian Football League in a deal worth $4 million over 3 years and will temporarily change the name of its top-selling chocolate bar in Australia to Believe, to help promote Tasmania's cause.[11]
Mars were re-branded "Hopp" (engl. "Go!") in Switzerland during UEFA Euro 2008. Like the "Believe" packaging sold in the UK in 2006, "Original Mars" was also shown in smaller print.[12]
In 2010, to promote England's involvement in the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the background of the UK Mars packaging became the St. George cross.
This is a Mars bar which has been coated with batter and deep-fried in oil or beef fat. First reports of battered Mars bars being sold in Stonehaven,[14][15] Scotland date back to 1995.[16]
Deep-fried Mars bars are available from some fish-and-chip shops in the UK (mainly in Scotland), Republic of Ireland, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States.[17]
In July 2005, Mars bars, along with the Snickers bar, were recalled due to an anonymous extortion attempt against Star City Casino in Sydney. The extortionist claimed to have poisoned seven Mars and Snickers bars at random stores in New South Wales. As a result Masterfoods Corporation, the company that manufactures Mars bars in Australia, recalled the entire Mars and Snickers product from store shelves in New South Wales. Nineteen people were possibly affected, with two being admitted to hospital. In the later half of August 2005, the threat to the public was deemed negligible and the bars returned to shelves.
In May 2007 Mars UK announced that Mars bars, along with many of their other products such as Snickers, Maltesers, Minstrels and Twix would no longer be suitable for vegetarians because of the introduction of rennet, a chemical sourced from calves’ stomachs used in the production of whey such as (pig).[18]
The rabbinical authorities declared that the products remained kosher for Jewish consumption.[19]
The decision was condemned by several groups, with the Vegetarian Society stating that "at a time when more and more consumers are concerned about the provenance of their food, Mars’ decision to use non-vegetarian whey is a backward step".
Mars later abandoned these plans, stating that it became "very clear, very quickly" that it had made a mistake.[20]
It has been observed on several occasions that the price of a Mars bar correlates fairly accurately with the change in value of the pound sterling since World War II, much in the way that the Big Mac Index has proven to be a good indicator of the actual relative purchasing power of world currencies.[21]
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