Mars, Hershey go to war over malted milk balls
ANOTHER British invasion is landing.
Mars Inc, based in McLean, Virginia, is bringing its bite-size malt ball Maltesers to America – and back to the company’s roots. The treat has been sating British urges for sweets since its creation by Forrest Mars Sr in the 1930s. He invented Maltesers and other confections abroad after squabbling with his father and setting out on his own.
Now Mars is hoping the invasion will grab market US share in the highly competitive confectionery space from rival The Hershey Company, maker of Whoppers, its American-made version of a bite-size malted milk ball.
Hershey and Mars dominate the US chocolate market, which is worth $21 billion annually.
“Hershey has always been the dominant player” in chocolate in America, said Brittany Weissman, a consumer analyst with Edward Jones. “They and Mars go back and forth.”
When mint, gum and candy other than chocolate are thrown in, the two companies are neck and neck. The broader category is known as the confectionery market, which is worth $35 billion annually.
Hershey commands 31 percent of the confectionery market with Mars, owner of Wrigley gum, close behind at 29.1,Weissman said.
Mars is trying to catch up by aiming at Americans’ growing love affair with bite-size snacks, whose sales are outpacing bigger stuff like chocolate bars by 10-to-one.
“Both Hershey and Mars are trying to get in on the snack trend,” Weissman said.
Snacks is a broad category that covers anything people eat between meals, whether it’s crackers, peanuts, chocolate, candy or even yogurt.
“People used to eat three square meals a day in the US,” Weissman said. “Now they are eating a smaller breakfast, then a mid-morning snack, a smaller lunch and a mid-afternoon snacks.”
But confections have defied the health and wellness odds, she said.
“People are willing to indulge themselves and give in to a little piece and say, ‘I’m going to have this 100-calorie piece, and I am going to treat myself’ as opposed to ‘I need this candy bar’.”
Mars, known for its signature M&Ms, Milky Way and Snickers brands, has tried various modifications to some of its staples over the years. But Financial Times reports that Maltesers, which have been sold for decades in Britain, will be the first wholly new product by Mars since it launched Twix in the US two decades ago.
For years, Mars and Hershey were embroiled in a legal dispute about their rival malted milk snacks. They reached an out-of-court settlement in 2015, which cleared the way for Mars to move its Maltesers into the US market.
Tracey Massey, who runs Mars’ US chocolate operations, told the FT in a recent interview that it’s especially hard to crack the chocolate market with an entirely new product because people tend to stick with the sweets they learned to love as a kid.
Consumers “have to try the product about 10 times before it gets into their repertoire”, Massey told the FT.
“So you have to be in it for the long haul.”
Devotees of each, though, would say that they are quite different and dispute which is made with better chocolate or a stronger malt flavour.