[ad_1]
Dove ice cream bars are packaged at the Mars plant in Burr Ridge, Illinois.
Source: Mars
Candy giant Mars is trying to make a name for itself in a new category: ice cream.
The family-owned company aims for ice cream sales to reach $1 billion worldwide by 2030. In May, Mars appointed CEO Anton Vincent to lead the global ice cream business, adding to his current position as president of Mars Wrigley North America.
Mars faces stiff competition to realize its ambition in the United States, but the company is investing in this area. You spent $50 million to upgrade an ice cream plant in Burr Ridge, Illinois, and put an additional $20 million into the facility that you haven’t spent yet.
Mars is also expanding its portfolio, introducing new flavors such as M&M’s Cookies, Cream Ice Cream Cookie Sandwich, and Twix Cookie Dough Ice Cream. used file $5 billion acquisition From North America, famous for its nut bars, to push for vegan ice cream alternatives.
While summer remains the biggest season for ice cream sales, Mars is also trying to boost business in the fall and winter with a partnership between the National Football League and Snickers Ice Cream Bar.
Mars aims to increase its ice cream market share as part of a broader business. Outside of candy and ice cream, Mars also has a large pet care segment and other food brands, including Combos Stuffed Snacks and Ben’s Original Rice.
The bet on ice cream has paid off for the company. In the past five years, Mars’ global ice cream sales have increased by 42%. The Dove Ice Cream brand alone grew 12% last year. As the segment growsAnd The United States accounts for more than half of the company’s ice cream business.
As Mars pours resources into the ice cream business, the company will discover if its familiar brands are enough to move it to its ambitious $1 billion sales goal.
Mars Ice Cream goals hinge on the old and the new
Mars entered the ice cream category in 1986 when it purchased Dove, then known only for its ice cream bars before the candy company expanded it into chocolate. Three years later, Mars introduced the Snickers Ice Cream Bar, now the best seller in its portfolio, followed by the M&M’s Cookie Ice Cream sandwiches.
“We don’t have the biggest ice cream brands, but we think we do have the biggest brands in ice cream,” Chav Lalani, president of Mars Ice Cream USA, told CNBC.
Today, Mars ranks among the top 10 ice cream makers in the United States in terms of retail sales, according to data from Euromonitor International. But owner Haagen-Dazs has far surpassed him general mills; Ben and Jerry’s parents Unilever; and privately owned Blue Bell Creameries.
“Mars ice cream brands are facing fierce competition as they move away from the number one spot in the US ice cream market,” said Carl Quach, head of food and nutrition research at Euromonitor.
While trying to forge that ground, Mars’ primary strategy for growing ice cream sales is focused on the opposite of what it did with Dove: taking other candy brands and turning them into frozen dessert.
“There is about a 64% conversion rate for people who buy our confectionery products and get involved with our brands, which gave us a lot of confidence that we have the right to win,” said Lalani.
Outside of Snickers and M&M’s, other candy brands in March are showing promise in their transition to ice cream. Twix ice cream is the fastest growing product in the company’s ice cream portfolio. Lalani thinks the frozen version of the Milky Way candy—known as a Mars bar outside the US—has the potential to be her next big hit.
While Lalani said Mars’ current portfolio has a lot of runway, not all of Mars Ice Cream’s growth will be organic. Acquisitions will also help increase sales and bring in new customers.
Kind frozen desserts, for example, entered Whole Foods a few months ago, adding a new retail chain to Mars’ frozen footprint.
In December, Mars announced that it would buy Tru Fru, a startup that makes chocolate-covered frozen and dried fruit. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Inside the ice cream factory
Dove Bars are dipped in chocolate at the factory.
Source: Mars
Nearly four decades ago, when it bought Mars Dove, it also bought the brand’s manufacturing facility in Burr Ridge, Illinois. These days, the plant is responsible for making all of the ice cream the company sells in the United States, which accounts for 55% of its worldwide demand.
As sales accelerated, the company had to invest in the sprawling facility to add capacity and capacity to make new products, like Kind’s nut-studded frozen dessert. The factory has distinct lines dedicated to the types of products Mars makes: sandwiches, bars, and sticks.
Mars’ manufacturing process is largely automated, and workers stand by to monitor the machines. Many of the ingredients come from elsewhere – ice cream mixes and M&M cookies from regional suppliers, peanuts from the Mars roasting facility—and they all come together at the Burr Ridge plant.
But it is a delicate process that requires precision to balance the consistency, quality, and temperature requirements of the ice cream.
For example, Snickers ice cream bars feature an ice cream topping, signature peanut butter fudge and caramel and a chocolate exterior. Inside the chill plant, the chocolate must remain warm enough to melt on top of the ice cream bar, which a conveyor belt then moves rapidly through the freezing tunnel, until the ice cream no longer melts.
From there, Snickers ice cream bars trigger sensors that detect production errors, such as being too big or too small. The peanuts in Snickers are often the culprit.
The machine quickly pushes the naysayers aside, joining the horde of fellow outcasts in slowly thawing out. The floors of the production line are covered with chocolate ashes, which did not meet Mars standards. To keep the ice cream bars from melting, the conveyor belt must move quickly, leaving no time for error correction.
But those who make the cut are relegated to being wrapped in Snickers packages. Mechanical arms use small vacuums to pick up Snickers bars without crushing them and put them into wrappers, which are then individually boxed and put into cartons.
New products also bring new manufacturing challenges. Kind’s frozen bars, for example, are meant to taste the same with every bite taken, but the nut chunks presented difficulties meeting that level of consistency, according to Romain Lepicard, Mars Ice Cream’s lead research and development team.
Mars’s $50 million has already been spent heavily toward upgrading the dedicated line of ice cream bars, which can produce hundreds of thousands of Snickers ice cream bars per day. He also directed the investment toward some other technology upgrades, such as digital screens that will help the facility go paperless.
Mars will spend the additional $20 million investment on increasing the number of bars of ice cream the plant can make. The company plans to invest in equipment that will help it make more Snickers bar ingredients, such as caramel, as well as other manufacturing line capacity upgrades.
[ad_2]
