I believe everyone is familiar with m&m, Snickers, Rainbow Candy, Special Fun and "Galaxy Stick", these are the most famous candy and chocolate brands in the world. In fact, they all belong to the same company, which is Mars Candy, but you may not know the story behind Mars.
Mars is one of the world's largest private companies, a typical family-owned business, with 6 seats on the billionaire list and their total assets reaching US$140.8 billion, making it one of the richest families in the world. So, how did they go from being poor to the peak of their wealth?
Let's go back to September 24, 1883, the day on which Frank Mars, the founder of Mars, was born in Hancock, Minnesota. When Frank was very young, he contracted polio, and in order to make little Frank feel better, his mother Eva would make some handmade chocolate candy every day for him to eat. When Frank first saw his mother making chocolate, he thought, it was a very interesting thing.
As he grew older, Frank learned from his mother how to make chocolate. Examples include fudge and peanut crisps. When Frank was 19 years old, he sold the candies he made to local shops. It was also Frank's first pot of gold in life.
At that time, chocolate was still a very fashionable food. Although sweets have spread all over the world since Egyptian times, it was not until the end of the 18th century that chocolate made from cocoa beans really became a fashion. Originally chocolate was a drink for the wealthy, and in 1847 Joseph Fry invented the first chocolate bar in the true sense. And Frank's mother was able to catch up with the "blue ocean" of chocolate, which is really surprising.
In 1902, Frank married a teacher named Ethel Kisak, who was only 19 years old. In 1904, their son Forrest was born. Unfortunately, shortly after the birth of their son, the marriage came to an end. In 1910, Frank married a woman named Ethel Ethiri (both wives were named Ethel).
A year later, the two of them started mars candy company in Washington, D.C., specializing in fresh candy. However, Mars is not the only confectionery company in the region, the Brownhaly Confectionery Company, founded in 1912, is its strongest opponent, but Mars is even better.
In 1914, Frank and Ethel's daughter, Patricia, was born.
After several years of competition, the Brownhaly Confectionery Company still failed to catch up with Mars, and in 1920, Brownhaly moved the company to Minnesota. Soon after, Frank founded a company called MARS O BAR that specializes in the production of chocolate bars.
In 1923, Frank took inspiration from his son Forrest to introduce a brand new chocolate bar, which we are familiar with as the "Galaxy Stick". Soon the Galaxy Stick became one of Mars Candy's best-selling products.
In 1929, Frank opened the company in Chicago. There Snickers was born.
With business booming, Frank began to enjoy life. In the late 1920s, he built a super luxurious large farm named Galaxy Farm. The estate covers an area of 23,000 square meters, has more than 30 houses, a racecourse, and Frank is said to have hired a total of 935 workers to build the manor.
Unfortunately, in 1934, when the manor was about to be completed, Frank, 50, died of a heart attack, and the task of running the company naturally fell to his children.
Because Frank and his first wife, Forrester, divorced when his son Forrester was very young, forester lived with his birth mother in Canada, so he did not have a very close relationship with his father.
At first, Forrester attended the University of California, Berkeley, then transferred to Yale University and earned a degree in industrial engineering in 1928.
After graduating, Forrester naturally entered his father's company. Unfortunately, he didn't make a big splash there, he was mainly responsible for Snickers in the company, and after a while, Forrester wanted to expand into overseas markets, but Frank was not very interested in international expansion. After some debate, Forrester left the company and moved to England to work at Nestlé.
However, he never gave up on his dream and developed a series of chocolate bar products.
In 1934, Forrester acquired a company that produced canned dog food, and after a series of reforms, the cannery had few competitors in the local area.
Upon learning of his father's death, Forrester immediately returned to the United States to take over the company, but when he arrived at the company, he found that his stepmother had become the president of the company, and it seemed that there was no hope of taking charge of the company in the short term, so Forrester started his own food company. Under its umbrella there are two famous brands, Uncle Ben Rice and Baolu Dog Food.
At the same time, Forrester did not give up developing new products for Mars.
In 1940, he came up with the idea for m&m beans, because there were always complaints that the chocolate had already begun to melt before it was put in his mouth and held in his hand.
So why was it named M&M?
It turned out that with the outbreak of war, Forrester was worried that there would be problems in the supply of raw materials for sugar and chocolate, so he and William Mori, the president of the Hershey Group, reached a partnership, and if the raw materials were rationed, the two companies would share resources. That's where the M&M name comes from, and it embodies the cooperative friendship between Mars and Morrie. But now, the two companies have become intolerable rivals.
In 1945, Forrest's stepmother died, and he and his half-sister Patricia began to take over the company. In 1954, Forrester introduced a peanut version of M&M beans, and he himself was extremely allergic to peanuts. In this way, Forrester ran his father's company and his own company for 10 years. Eventually, in 1964, 30 years after his father's death, the two companies merged. His sister Patricia died in 1965 without children, so Forrester inherited the entire stake in his sister.
For the next 10 years, Forrester managed the company with an "iron fist", placing great emphasis on punctuality and performance. The company stipulates that if you meet the performance indicators in the middle of the week without any record of late arrivals, you will receive a 10% bonus. However, even if you are only late once, whether you are a janitor or an executive, you will lose the opportunity to receive bonuses.
In 1973, at the age of 69, Forrest "retired." His three children began to take over the company, namely Forrester Jr., John, and Jacqueline. But they were just old Forrester's puppets. In 1981, the elder Forrester moved his family to Henderson, Nevada, where he founded the Ethel M Chocolate Company, where he operated for seven years. In 1988, he sold the company to Mars Confectionery. The elder Forrester officially retired.
Ethel M Chocolate Company
In 1998, Forrester died at the age of 95.
Under the leadership of forrester's children, Mars became stronger and stronger. They moved the company's headquarters to Virginia. Because Mars' secrecy is very strict, we don't know how they operate internally. But one of Mars' avenues for growth is acquisitions, and they're unambiguous about that.
In 2008, for example, Mars acquired Wrigley for $23 billion. In 2014, it acquired Procter & Gamble, three of its pet food brands, for $2.9 billion.
Acquisition of Wrigley Corporation
In addition, Mars has also tried to expand into new areas. In 2003, for example, the acquisition of Aqua Pharmaceuticals allowed them to enter the pharmaceutical and bond space. After acquiring Banfield Pet Hospital in 2007, Mars has since invested more in pet care. In 2015, it acquired BluePearl Veterinary Partners, in 2017 it acquired vca, and in 2018 it acquired the Linnaeus Group. These acquisitions have made Mars the world's largest supplier of pet nutrition and veterinary care.
Linnaeus Group
The three children who run the company are no longer young. Forrester Jr. died in 2016 and his shares were inherited by an average of 4 children he worked for in Mars. As for John, it is more mysterious that people do not even know whether he is really involved in the operation of the company, and he himself lives a private and peaceful life in Wyoming. Life was so secretive that when Forbes released its billionaire list in 2010 and 2014, people couldn't even find a picture of John.
John photo
As for Jacqueline, she is the most exposed of her three children and often attends events.
Jacqueline
This is the story of the $140 billion, chocolate family.
Simple questions, interesting answers. I'm a hard-working scientist, and following me brings you more interesting science stories.