The story of Mars Inc. doesn’t begin with a billion-dollar food empire. It begins with Franklin Clarence Mars, a boy from Minnesota who learned candy making at his mother’s kitchen table after polio kept him from running outside with other kids. By the early 1900s, Frank Mars was selling homemade chocolates, failing at one business after another, and still stubbornly determined to succeed. His turning point came in 1923 with the Milky Way bar, a recipe that transformed a small operation into a national candy brand.
But the real disruption came from his son, Forrest Mars Sr. Often estranged from his father, Forrest took the family recipe overseas, creating the Mars bar in Britain and proving he had both the vision and the ruthlessness to compete with anyone. He later returned to the United States, took over the business, and expanded it far beyond candy. The company that once survived on chocolate bars now owned pet food brands like Pedigree and Whiskas, rice products like Uncle Ben’s, and a global distribution network that quietly dwarfed rivals.
Today, the Mars family still owns the company, making them some of the wealthiest private citizens in the world. Estimates place the value of Mars Inc. at over $70 billion, larger than Hershey, Kellogg’s (now Kellanova), and even McDonald’s in terms of private ownership. Though the company guards its privacy and has no public stock, its influence is everywhere: from a Mars candy factory producing chocolate in Illinois, to acquisitions in pet care and food that keep it growing worldwide. We'd like to thank Simon Whistler of the Brain Food Show Podcast for allowing us to use this audio.