Forrest Mars Jr., Who Shaped Global Candy Empire, Dies at 84

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Forrest Mars Jr., Who Shaped Global Candy Empire, Dies at 84

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS SEATTLE — Jul 28, 2016, 4:00 PM ET

Forrest E. Mars Jr., who helped shape Mars Inc. into a multi-billion dollar confectionary empire with beloved brands such as M&M's and Snickers bars, has died. He was 84.

Company spokeswoman Kelly McGrail says he died Tuesday in Seattle of complications following a heart attack. He had been living in Sheridan, Wyoming, at the time of his death.

With his brother and sister in 1973, Mars inherited the company his grandfather started more than a century ago. He became co-president with his brother John in 1975 and helped build the company into a diverse global enterprise whose brands included Pedigree pet food and Skittles candy.

He joined the company in 1959 as a financial staff officer for M&M Candies. He managed a confectionary factory in The Netherlands and directed Mars France before returning to McLean, Virginia in 1970 to serve as the company's vice-president.

Mars is survived by his wife, four children and many other relatives.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/forrest-mars-jr-shaped-global-candy-empire-dies-40967592

[BumRushDaShow]

1. My mother always liked Milky Way bars

Didn't realize the family was still running the company.

[montana_hazeleyes]

2. RIP Mr. Mars. You helped make life a little sweeter for us.

And that's a good thing to do.

[Freddie]

3. I'll have a Milky Way in his honor

Or a Snickers Almond. Or both

[SoCalMusicLover]

4. Was He Named After Nathan Forrest?

Just wondering, Forrest Gump was.

[csziggy]

5. A good book about the chocolate industry in the US

Is "The Emperors of Chocolate" by Joël Glenn Brenner. While it is an older book (published in 2000) it is worth finding and reading if you're interested in chocolate.

Amazon.com Review:
Brenner, a former Washington Post financial reporter, tells the stories of how Forrest Mars Sr. and Milton S. Hershey turned their two companies from small mom-and-pop operations into international forces over the last century. While they may have started small, their products--Mars's Snickers and M&M's and Hershey's milk-chocolate bars and Kisses--are ubiquitous. Hershey was a benevolent philanthropist who spent hundreds of millions to create a town and orphanage to fulfill his altruistic dreams. Mars was a short-tempered perfectionist who yelled at anyone who failed to meet his standards. "What made Forrest's blood rush was the thrill of mastering new opportunities and taming uncharted worlds," the author writes. "Like Milton Hershey, he was driven by his visions; but where Milton Hershey saw utopia, Forrest Mars saw conquest." Nine years in the making, The Emperors of Chocolate is a satisfying read about the two titans of the chocolate world and how they capitalized on our love of sweets. --Dan Ring

From Publishers Weekly
Forrest Mars and Milton Hershey effortlessly hold center stage in this superb study of their competing candy companies. Although both men got rich on chocolate, Mars and Hershey are such markedly different characters that Brenner's book is a riot of dramatic contrasts. Mars is irascible, empire obsessed and insanely tightfisted (his three children never tasted a single M&M during their childhoods because he told them he couldn't spare any). Hershey was generous to a fault, a utopian dreamer who planned and built Hershey, Pa., as a home for his company and its workers. He founded an orphanage for disadvantaged children and, in 1918, almost 30 years before his death, donated his entire estate to the Hershey Trust for the benefit of the orphanage. To her credit, former Washington Post hand Brenner goes beyond these two titans and portrays the entire candy industry. Her prodigious research reveals how the personal style of each candy patriarch continues to influence the current structure and strategy of the company he led. By fully exploiting the many differences between the two companies (Mars is privately held and family-run; Hershey is a publicly held company administered by a management team responsible to the Hershey Trust), Brenner has produced a stellar work of corporate history.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Amazon.com page for the book.

It's amazing how the original visions of the company founders have now changed so much that Hershey is reviled and Mars is admired!

[packman]

6. Loved Snickers - especially frozen

Seemed like it had good quality in every layer - chocolate, nougat, nuts and caramel.