What does Mars Inc. make?

Well, obviously, they make Mars bars. Slightly less obviously, they also 
make Bounty, Twix, Snickers and a few other things.

They also own Wrigleys though. So they make all kinds of chewing gum, 
breath mints, and so forth.

But I bet you didn't know, they own Uncle Ben's. You know, they guys who 
sell packet rice. So yeah, next time you eat that stuff, it's made by Mars.

But that's not all. They also own... Whiskas. Yeah, that's right. They 
make cat food. Eww. :-S



PepsiCo is a similar story. They obviously make Pepsi, Pepsi Max and 
Diet Pepsi. They also make Mountain Dew, Gatorade, 7UP, etc. Apparently 
they make Tropicana - which is interesting, because that's supposedly a 
healthy fruity drink, not the flavoured sugar water listed so far. Also 
mildly surprising, they make Lipton Ice (in association with Unilever, 
better known for making floor cleaners and disinfectants).

But it gets weirder. They own Doritos. Next time you're munching through 
some of those, that's PepsiCo. Not /that/ surprising, since you can 
easily imagine somebody eating those out of the same vending machine 
that also dispenses Pepsi.

They also own Quaker Foods, makers of Quaker Oats, etc. They make 
Cheetos too. And, perhaps most surprising of all, they /own/ Walkers, 
the iconic crisp manufacturers. So next time you think to yourself 
"stick these Doritos, I'm going to buy Walkers instead" then, um, yeah - 
it's the same damned company.



All of this is /nothing/, though, compared to the Coca-Cola company. 
Their Wikipedia page doesn't even /say/ what they make; there's an 
entire other page for that. I counted 16 screenfuls of text. Suffice it 
to say, they own A LOT of stuff! o_O

Baffling, isn't it? So many brands, and yet they're all actually made by 
just three big companies. And many of them make seemingly unrelated 
products...

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Slightly less obviously, they also make

  I always find it amusing when someone declares that he's boycotting
this or that megacorporation because they don't like their business
practices or whatever (the last example was someone saying they do not
buy Sony products) without realizing that it's almost *impossible* to
live in the modern world without buying something made by the corporation
or, at the very least, part of the money going to them (regardless of which
huge international megacorporation we are talking about).

  (For example, good luck trying to stop Sony from getting any of your
money.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

> All of this is /nothing/, though, compared to the Coca-Cola company.
> Their Wikipedia page doesn't even /say/ what they make; there's an
> entire other page for that. I counted 16 screenfuls of text. Suffice it
> to say, they own A LOT of stuff! o_O

Procter & Gamble is another big one with their own wikipedia page of brands.

It gets more complicated when brands are sold between companies, or even 
worse when the same brand is owned by different companies in different 
countries!

> Baffling, isn't it? So many brands, and yet they're all actually made by
> just three big companies. And many of them make seemingly unrelated
> products...

Add in to that mix all the supermarket (un)branded stuff, which are 
probably just made by the same companies.

Post a reply to this message

On 11/04/2012 01:57 PM, scott wrote:
>> All of this is /nothing/, though, compared to the Coca-Cola company.
>> They own A LOT of stuff! o_O
>
> Procter & Gamble is another big one with their own wikipedia page of
> brands.

Yeah, I'll bet. I would imagine Unilever is similar.

> It gets more complicated when brands are sold between companies, or even
> worse when the same brand is owned by different companies in different
> countries!

What I can't figure out is how premium brands end up getting owned by 
budget brands.

For example, Ferrari is famous for making luxury cars that only a few of 
the richest people in the world can afford to drive. Ferrari is 
currently owned by Fiat, famous for making shit cars that no sane person 
in their right mind would want to drive, never mind own. So... how the 
hell did Fiat manage to afford Ferrari?

Similarly, Cadbury, maker of fine chocolates, was recently bought by 
Kraft foods, makers of naff cheap crap. How the heck did /that/ happen??

> Add in to that mix all the supermarket (un)branded stuff, which are
> probably just made by the same companies.

Uh... I'm not sure that (say) Tesco's own cornflakes are made by the 
same people as Kellog's cornflakes. What I /would/ suspect, however, is 
that Tesco's own cornflakes are made by the same people as ADSA's own 
cornflakes, Sainsbury's own cornflakes, and so on. Because, really, how 
many factories making cornflakes can there possibly be?

Post a reply to this message

On 11/04/2012 01:39 PM, Warp wrote:
>    I always find it amusing when someone declares that he's boycotting
> this or that megacorporation because they don't like their business
> practices or whatever without realizing that it's almost *impossible*

Yeah, quite. There are a few corporations out there which make so much 
stuff, you can't possibly avoid giving them your money. (Well, unless 
you never buy /anything/, and that's not exactly feasible.)

Currently I'm seriously ****ed off with Amazon. When you buy something 
from them and the price on screen is X, you expect to pay X, plus some 
negligible amount for postage. You to /not/ expect to pay 1.5 X. If I 
had known that the /actual/ price was 1.5 X, I would not have purchased 
the item. The fact that Amazon hid this information seems tantamount to 
fraud, to me.

But hey, what can you do? It's not as if you can, I don't know, /file a 
complaint/ or anything. Nor that they would even /care/ if you did...

Post a reply to this message

> For example, Ferrari is famous for making luxury cars that only a few of
> the richest people in the world can afford to drive. Ferrari is
> currently owned by Fiat, famous for making shit cars that no sane person
> in their right mind would want to drive, never mind own. So... how the
> hell did Fiat manage to afford Ferrari?

Because there are 2 million Fiats sold each year, yet only 5000 
Ferraris.  Which brand would you rather own?  Hint: if you choose 
correctly you could buy the other one with about 2 weeks of profit :-)

> Similarly, Cadbury, maker of fine chocolates, was recently bought by
> Kraft foods, makers of naff cheap crap. How the heck did /that/ happen??

They offered a high enough price that was acceptable for the company, 
much like any other trade.

> Uh... I'm not sure that (say) Tesco's own cornflakes are made by the
> same people as Kellog's cornflakes.

Maybe not that exact example (I have no idea who makes Tesco's 
cornflakes), but plenty of companies make their own brands and also the 
stuff for supermarket brands.  They already have all the equipment and 
logistics in place, plus a reputation with the supermarket, it will 
benefit both companies in the end.

Post a reply to this message

On 11/04/2012 02:43 PM, scott wrote:
>> For example, Ferrari is famous for making luxury cars that only a few of
>> the richest people in the world can afford to drive. Ferrari is
>> currently owned by Fiat, famous for making shit cars that no sane person
>> in their right mind would want to drive, never mind own. So... how the
>> hell did Fiat manage to afford Ferrari?
>
> Because there are 2 million Fiats sold each year, yet only 5000
> Ferraris. Which brand would you rather own?

On the other hand, the profit on selling one Fiat pales into 
insignificance compared to the profit on selling a single Ferrari. So 
you don't need to sell anywhere near as many to make the same yearly 
profit. It /should/ be a no-brainer; Ferrari /should/ be making vastly 
more money than Fiat will ever own. So...???

>> Similarly, Cadbury, maker of fine chocolates, was recently bought by
>> Kraft foods, makers of naff cheap crap. How the heck did /that/ happen??
>
> They offered a high enough price that was acceptable for the company,
> much like any other trade.

My question was more "how the hell can they afford that?"

>> Uh... I'm not sure that (say) Tesco's own cornflakes are made by the
>> same people as Kellog's cornflakes.
>
> Maybe not that exact example (I have no idea who makes Tesco's
> cornflakes), but plenty of companies make their own brands and also the
> stuff for supermarket brands. They already have all the equipment and
> logistics in place, plus a reputation with the supermarket, it will
> benefit both companies in the end.

I'm just trying to visualise the conversation though: "Yeah, we can sell 


that wouldn't be laughable.

Post a reply to this message

>It /should/ be a no-brainer; Ferrari /should/ be making vastly
> more money than Fiat will ever own. So...???

The more people there are that think like that, the easier it is for me 
to make money!  Here, let me give you my precious expensive Ferrari 
company, and in return you give me all your cheapo Fiat factories and 
brands :-)  Sound like a good deal to you? OK let's go!

> My question was more "how the hell can they afford that?"

The real question is, will Kraft be able to get more value from Cadbury 
than everyone else thought?  If not, then it was a waste of money to buy 
them, but if Kraft can do something with the company to make it more 
valuable (restructuring, new products, whatever) then it was a good buy. 
  Only time will tell.

> I'm just trying to visualise the conversation though: "Yeah, we can sell


> that wouldn't be laughable.

That's exactly how it works (maybe not as extreme difference in price, 
and the company will print the packaging/label too).  The supermarkets 
know that consumers want to buy expensive Kellogs cereal and cheap 
own-brand stuff, it will work out better (=more profit) for the 
supermarkets and the suppliers (Kellogs) if they supply both products, 
given how similar they are.

Post a reply to this message

Le 11/04/2012 15:59, Invisible nous fit lire :
> 
> I'm just trying to visualise the conversation though: "Yeah, we can sell
> you our brand for £8/box, and then we can sell you the same thing for
> £0.0017/box and let you print your own label on it." I'm not seeing how
> that wouldn't be laughable.

Well, the difference might be in the recipe too.
The brand box might use a recipe with 19 ingredients and butter. The
supermarket box might use palm oil and less expensive ingredients.

Of course, there is also the brand starting to cheat on reputation: "new
taste", "light" ... usually happen when the old makers get a check from
the money people (as buying the company at retirement time). Instead of
continuing the old expensive way, they now put pressure to get a better
return on investment (ROI). The head of the company switched from "a
company for a purpose" to "a company to make money".

Sciences without consciences...

Post a reply to this message

> I'm just trying to visualise the conversation though: "Yeah, we can sell


> that wouldn't be laughable.

Actually a similar thing happens in my company.  We make TVs and phones 
etc that are generally quite expensive.  Yet we also make the internal 
components of TVs and phones that are sold to other companies that make 
much cheaper TVs and phones (of course the spec is not exactly the same, 
but it's the same factories and processes).  It makes us more profit 
than if we refused to do such business.

Post a reply to this message