By Andrew Clarke, Global President, Mars Snacking
For more than a century, we’ve been in the business of inspiring moments of everyday happiness. And business is booming. Our secret? Innovation. We have one hundred-plus years of creating and continuously evolving some of the world’s most recognizable treats and snacks under our belt. In a nutshell, we believe that to stand still is to fall behind. Anything else would be a disservice to the people who buy our products.
Which is why we continue to prioritize investing in innovation and pushing boundaries in our relentless pursuit of delivering extraordinary experiences for our consumers around the world.
The opening of our brand new $42 million, state-of-the-art R&D facility in Chicago is a testament to that. It reaffirms our unwavering commitment to staying ahead of the curve and will serve as the epicenter for the kind of groundbreaking R&D that will shape the snacking category for generations to come.
The new 44,000-square-foot addition to our Global Innovation Center makes the facility the largest innovation hub in our global network of Snacking innovation sites. And, more importantly, it means we can now do everything under one roof: From vital ingredient science work aimed at pioneering a new era of sustainable ingredients, to developing packaging and product.
Around 300 of our snacking scientists, engineers and developers will use the space as a playpen to bring their delicious ideas to life. There are no swing sets or soft toys in sight mind you, but an ultramodern test kitchen, a next-generation nut research room, a newfangled production line that streamlines the product scaling process, and flexible innovation spaces for unconstrained blue-sky-thinking throughout.
I am particularly proud to usher in this new era of creativity for Mars in the city where, in many ways, it all began: The sweetest city in America – and our home for over a century, Chicago.
In 1929, Frank Mars opened our first large-scale chocolate production plant in the Windy City. Iconic treats like Snickers and 3 Musketeers quickly followed. Fast forward to today, where, with an assembly of trailblazing associates and pioneering partnerships that ignite our creativity, coupled with unparalleled technology at our fingertips, we are innovating the Future of Snacking.
