Do we like Mars?
Family-owned maker of M&M'S, Snickers, Pedigree and Royal Canin, now with Kellanova snacks. Based in McLean, Virginia, US.
Our score: 6 out of 10. Decent, but not a clear yes. Its cocoa sourcing looks better than most rivals, but child labour in cocoa is still unsolved and farmer incomes are unproven.
Mars began in 1911, when Frank Mars made buttercream candy in his Tacoma home kitchen. Today it is a family-owned global business with more than 130 brands. They span snacks, food, pet food and vet services. The company says it makes over $65bn a year and employs about 170,000 people.
The Mars family still owns all the shares, and Poul Weihrauch has run the company since 2022. He told TIME that the family wants to be proud of what it owns. He added that a public company would be a very different thing. A supervisory board of six family members is closely involved.
The big recent move was buying Kellanova for about $36bn. The European Commission cleared it unconditionally in December 2025 after an in-depth probe, and the deal closed on 11 December. That added Pringles, Pop-Tarts and Cheez-It to the Mars stable. The commission found no evidence Mars would gain extra power over retailers.
The cocoa drama is the old one. Mars has been named in several US child-labour lawsuits over Ivory Coast cocoa. One US court found it had no duty to put warnings on labels. A federal appeals court rejected a separate class action by eight Malian citizens. The courts did not rule on the allegations themselves, but the industry's problem remains.
On the plus side, Mars says 98% of its 2025 cocoa came through its responsible-sourcing programme and was deforestation-free. That is just short of its 100% target. Analysts rate it among the stronger mass-market chocolate firms, but say proof that farmers earn a living income is missing. We think that's a fair 6: better than most, still short of a clean bill.