Mars bar

Mars bar (UK style)

The Mars Bar is a chocolate bar manufactured by Mars Incorporated. It was first manufactured in Slough in the United Kingdom in 1932 as a sweeter version of the American Milky Way bar which Mars, Inc. produced in the USA (not to be confused with the European version of the Milky Way, which is a different confection).

A different chocolate bar with the same name was sold in the USA until 2002 when its name was changed to Snickers Almond Bar. It contained then, and still does, plain nougat, almonds, caramel and milk chocolate.

International variations

Chocolate bars sold as the Mars Bar vary in different regions of the world. The American version (discontinued in 2002) is no longer sold anywhere, and has been replaced with the similar (but not identical) Snickers Almond. You can still find the original Mars bars in the United States in certain stores and online at places such as Amazon.com.

UK Mars Bar

In 1932, Forrest Mars, son of American candy maker Frank Mars, rented a factory in Slough and with a staff of twelve people began manufacturing a kind of chocolate bar that had not been seen before in the UK. At that time most chocolate was simply a solid block, whereas the Mars Bar consisted of nougat and caramel covered in milk chocolate. It was modeled after his father's Milky Way bar, which was already popular in the US. Today the basic recipe is unaltered but the size of the bar and the proportions of the main components have changed over the years.

In 2002, the UK Mars Bar was reformulated and repackaged. The nougat was made lighter, the chocolate on top became noticeably thinner, and the overall weight of the bar was reduced slightly. This brought it closer in style to the European Milky Way and the North American 3 Musketeers bars. The packaging was also redesigned with a less-bold and more cursive logo.

Additionally, the famous slogan "A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play" was also replaced with "Pleasure you can't measure". The reasoning behind this was to increase its "treat" appeal to the female market; previously, Mars had been associated with a somewhat masculine and sporty image.

Various sizes are made: miniature bars called "FUN SIZE" (19.7 gram); "Snack Time" (36.5 gram) which is sold in multiple packs; a larger multi-pack size of 54 gram, the regular sized single 62.5 gram bar; and a "Kingsize" 84 gram bar. The regular 62.5 gram single bar contains 284 calories.

In the UK, most Mars Bars are still made at the Slough Trading Estate.

Canada

Since the summer of 2006, all Mars Bars produced in Canada are peanut-free. Mars is one of the few chocolate bars in North America for which no size of the product has any trace of peanuts. In February 2008, Mars Canada introduced a new variety of Mars bar called "Mars Caramel" to compete with the Cadbury Caramilk and Nestle Aero Caramel bars.

Limited editions

File:Mars midnight.jpg

Mars Midnight

Several limited-edition variants of Mars Bars have been released in various countries. (These have often been permanent releases in other countries). They include:

• Mars Almond
• Mars Dark and Light
• Mars Midnight, same filling as a normal Mars Bar but covered in dark chocolate. As Mars Dark, it is now on permanent release in Canada.
• Mars Gold
• Mars Mini Eggs (Available around Easter)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest Mars Bar
• Mars Triple Chocolate (Australia)
• Mars Lava (Australia - Orange flavoured))
• Mars Fling (Australia)
• Mars Miniatures, 5 fun size bars in the same packet
• Mars XXX (Australia) sold in gold wrapping.
• Mars Chill (Australia and New Zealand) - wrapper had 'Mars' written in white, turned to blue when cold
• Mars Rocks (Australia and New Zealand), released by Mars Snackfood Australia in August 2007, is made of chocolate-malt nougat topped with a layer of caramel and covered with milk chocolate embedded with "crispies" (whose main ingredients are wheat flour and sugar).

Spinoff products

File:Mars Midnight Ice Cream.jpg

Mars Midnight Ice Cream

Other products have also been released using the Mars branding.

• Mars Delight
• Mars Drink
• Mars Ice Cream
• Mars Midnight Ice Cream
• Mars Cake Bar
• Mars Bisc & (Australia & the UK - A biscuit with Mars topping)
• Mars Pods (Australia & New Zealand - a small crunchy biscuit with Mars filling)
• Mars Rocks
• Mars Muffin
• Mars Planets - Small balls similar to Maltesers with nougat, crunchy and caramel fillings

Custom packaging

Mars Believe

The Original Mars bar in "Believe" packaging was sold in the UK from 18 April 2006 until the end of the 2006 FIFA World Cup in July. "Believe" took prominence on the packaging ("Original Mars" appeared in smaller print) to indicate support for the England national football team. Advertising in other nations of the UK was tailored to reflect their own teams after the public condemnation, although in Scotland the "Believe" packaging was still used - and sales dropped dramatically.

Advertising slogans

Former

• "Mars macht mobil bei Arbeit, Sport und Spiel" (Mars makes mobile, at work, sports and play) - Germany (1980s and 1990s)
• "A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play" - United Kingdom, Australia (pre-2002)
• "Another way to make your day" - (UK 2005)
• "Feels good to be back! " - Australia (2005)
• "Un Mars, et ça repart" - France (late 1990s and renewed from 2006)
• "Mars, que du bonheur" (Mars, only happiness) - France
• "Mars, haal eruit wat erin zit!" (Mars, get out of it, what's in it) - The Netherlands

Current

• "Recharge on Mars" - Canada
• "Work-Rest-Play" - UK
• "Out of this world!" - Australia, UK
• "MARS® LEGEND™" - Australia
• "Earth - what you'd eat if you lived on mars" - New Zealand and Australia
• "Mars, pleasure you can't measure" - Europe
• ""Mars, momento di vero godimento"" (Mars, a moment of pure enjoyment) - Italy
• "Mars, geeft je energie" (Gives you energy) - The Netherlands
• "Nimm Mars, gib Gas" (Take Mars, step on the gas) - Germany
• "Un Mars, et ça repart" - France

Deep-fried Mars Bar

Main article: Deep-fried Mars bar

This is a Mars bar which has been coated with batter and deep-fried in oil or beef fat. First reports of battered Mars bars being sold in Stonehaven , Scotland date back to 1995, although an ice-cream vendor in Manchester claims to have invented it in the early 1990s.

Deep-fried Mars bars are available from some fish-and-chip shops in Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

Australian recall

In July 2005, Mars Bars, along with the Snickers bar, were recalled due to an anonymous extortion attempt against Star City Casino in Sydney. The extortionist claimed to have poisoned seven Mars and Snickers bars at random in New South Wales. As a result Masterfoods Corporation, the company that manufactures Mars Bars in Australia, recalled the entire Mars and Snickers product from store shelves in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. Nineteen people were possibly affected, with two being admitted to hospital. In the later half of August 2005, the threat to the public was deemed negligible and the bars returned to shelves, accompanied by a state-wide advertising campaign incorporating the slogan "Feels good to be back".

Animal products controversy

In May 2007 Masterfoods announced that Mars Bars, along with many of their other products such as Snickers, Maltesers, Minstrels and Twix would no longer be suitable for vegetarians because of the introduction of rennet, a chemical sourced from calves’ stomachs used in the production of whey. Masterfoods confirmed that many other products such as Easter eggs and ice cream would also be affected.

The decision was condemned by several groups, with the Vegetarian Society stating that "at a time when more and more consumers are concerned about the provenance of their food, Masterfoods’ decision to use non-vegetarian whey is a backward step".

However, Masterfoods later abandoned these plans, stating that it became "very clear, very quickly" that it had made a mistake.

In popular culture

• Rock group The Undertones released a song called "Mars Bars", which has several references to the product. The then-current UK (and US) advertising slogan "A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play" is incorporated into the song's lyrics.

• The terrorists in Die Hard (1988) are shown throughout the movie eating Mars Bars and drinking Coca-Cola.

• In the book Total Recall, Hauser's briefcase was full of Mars Bars. He fed them to rats to mislead the villains.

• 'Mars Bar' is used as a rhyming slang phrase in parts of South East England and London to refer to a scar.

• Punk poet John Cooper Clarke references the chocolate in his poem, "Health Fanatic" which can be found in Urgh! A Music War

• On the television show Veronica Mars, episode 14 of the recently concluded third season was named "Mars, Bars", during which main character Veronica is in jail for some of the episode. Fans of the show have been sending Mars chocolate bars to The CW offices and network President Dawn Ostroff in an effort to save the show from cancellation after it was excluded from The CW Fall 2007 schedule, and officially canceled on June 12, 2007.

• In the children's book, Maniac Magee, a secondary character's nickname is "Mars Bar", and is always mentioned with him constantly eating a Mars Bar.

• On a rural road in Maine in 1999, horror writer Stephen King was struck and seriously injured by a van whose driver told investigators that he had been on his way to get "some of those Marses[sic] Bars they have up to the store." King later wrote that on hearing this, it occurred to him that he had "nearly been killed by a character out of one of [his] own novels."

• The 2007 Season Opener for NBC's TV series 'Scrubs' has an intro segment where Turk wonders if they still make Mars Bars.

• In the 1997 book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling, the main character Harry asks the food trolley lady on the Hogwarts Express for Mars Bars, only to discover that she has none.

Economics

It has been observed on several occasions that the price of a Mars Bar correlates fairly accurately with the change in value of the pound sterling since World War II.

Advertisements

• A 2006 Mars Bar advert in the UK features the song "Blue Monday" by New Order.
• A 2008 Mars Bar advert in the UK features the song Jump Around by House Of Pain.

External links

• The Visible Mars Bar project, which shows the difference between US and UK mars bars.
• Site with cross-sections of both the original U.S. and Canadian Mars bars
• Slough History Online
• The Chocolate Review's article on the Mars Bar