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The company behind M&M's, Skittles, Snickers and Twix is preparing to make a lot more candy.
Mars Inc. plans to grow its U.S. manufacturing operations with a $2B investment by the end of next year, the company announced Tuesday.
The investment will support a $240M facility for its Nature's Bakery brand in Salt Lake City that opens this week. The 339K SF site will create more than 230 jobs in the region, according to Mars. The brand is expanding its capacity to produce nearly 1 billion bars per year.
"The U.S. is our biggest and most important market, and a key engine of growth for the long term – not only through our legacy manufacturing footprint but also through the expansion of strategic acquisitions like Nature's Bakery, which is already scaling quickly," said Claus Aagaard, chief financial officer of Mars, Inc.
This $2B investment will build on the $6B in capital it has put into its manufacturing over the last five years. Earlier this year, Mars opened a $450M factory for its Royal Canin dry pet food brand in Ohio, creating up to 270 new jobs in the area. The factory is its largest facility globally.
The McLean, Virginia-based company, which sells a range of food, candy and pet food items, produces 94% of its goods in the U.S.
Mars is a $55B family-owned company that has a presence in 49 states, employs over 70,000 employees and operates 38 factories. It has more than 40 brands, including 3 Musketeers, Milky Way, Starburst, Dove chocolate, Life Savers and several chewing gum brands it bought with its 2008 acquisition of Wrigley.
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