Food Processing - December 2007 - (Page 16)

Hackettstown plant associates meet every morning for a qualtiiy check of the previous day’s production of M&M’S. those savings into core brand support, new product launches, enhanced retail coverage and expanded production capacity. One of the low points was the ﬁrst half of 2006, when sales in the Snackfood division dropped 2 percent. “The Snackfood division responded with decisive action, kicking into high gear and improving the speed and ﬂexibility of decision-making,” says Lachman. “The result was a phenomenal turnaround with growth in sales [second half sales grew by 5.5 percent over 2005], earnings and market share. And, more importantly, a stage was set for aggressively pursuing the No. 1 chocolate share position.” Here are some examples of what even a large organization can accomplish when it really wants to: • Snickers Dark Bar, M&M’S Dark Chocolate Candies and Snickers Nut ’n’ Butter, all planned for 2007 launches, were moved up to 2006 to fuel the year’s second-half growth. • Plant operations across the snack food division delivered almost $40 million in real savings. • The commercial (purchasing) team saved $40 million in prime costs. • Generally, the unit cut non-quality costs by $30 million. All those savings were reinvested to drive additional growth. There’s still a ways to go to reach the ultimate goal. Hershey still holds the top market share in the chocolate category, but Mars has been adding points, bringing itself to 29.0 percent market share (according to IRI data for the period ending Nov. 4). The Dove brand grew by 42.1 percent, 3 Musketeers by 18.2 percent, M&M’S by 8.3 percent and Twix by 11.8 percent. Snickers, the No. 1 candy single, grew by 8.7 percent. Dark chocolate and premium chocolate products currently are driving growth of the overall chocolate category. To the call for dark chocolate, Mars responds with several dark versions of familiar brands – such as M&M’S Dark Chocolate, Milky Way Midnight Dark, Snickers Dark, Dove Dark – as well as its 18-month-old CocoaVia brand, with the emphasis on ﬂavanols. The Dove brand is an interesting story. Twenty-ﬁve years ago it was a popular line of ice cream bars that was available only in Chicago. Even then, what made the ice cream novelty stand out was the rich chocolate coating. Mars acquired Dove in 1986 from the founding family and continues to manufacture the ice cream bars at a suburban Chicago plant. More importantly, since the acquisition, Mars developed Dove as a premium chocolate brand. “It was not that great a leap, but it was a great opportunity,” says Ralph Jerome, Mars Snackfood U.S. vice president of R&D. “Before Dove, we didn’t have a pure, solid chocolate bar. And we had a lot of premium chocolate expertise not being leveraged.” Dove also has two high-cacao products, at 63 and 71 percent cacao, as well as the Dove Origins line, naming Ecuador, Dominican Republic and Ghana as the sources of its cacao. The same personalized message technology behind My M&M’S is being used to print custom messages on the inside of the foil of My Dove chocolates. MARS INC. PRODUCT CATEGORIES MARS INC. SALES 16 • FOOD PROCESSING DECEMBER 2007 WWW.FOODPROCESSING.COM http://www.foodprocessing.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Food Processing - December 2007

Contents Editor's Plate NewsBites Rollout Food Biz Kids Processor of the Year: Mars Snackfood U.S. Mass Production Meets Custom Manufacturing Product Development: Bone appetit! Show Report: Pack/Process Expo and Worldwide Food Expo New Product Profiles Toops Scoops

Food Processing - December 2007

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.