Forrest Mars Sr.
{{short description|American businessman (1904–1999)}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Forrest Mars Sr.
| image = Forrest Mars, Sr..jpg
| birth_name = Forrest Edward Mars
| birth_date = {{birth date|1904|03|21}}
| birth_place = Wadena, Minnesota, U.S.
| death_date = {{death date and age|1999|07|01|1904|03|21}}
| death_place = Miami, Florida, U.S.
| education = Yale University
University of California, Berkeley
| occupation = Confectionary magnate
| known_for = {{ubl|Director of Mars Inc.|Founder of Ethel M Chocolate Factory}}
| years active = 1923−1973
| spouse = {{marriage|Audrey Ruth Meyer||1989|end=d.}}
| family = Mars family
}}
Forrest Edward Mars Sr. (March 21, 1904 – July 1, 1999) was an American billionaire businessman and the driving force of the candy company Mars Inc. He is best known for introducing Milky Way (1924) and Mars (1932) chocolate bars, and M&M's (1941) chocolate, as well as orchestrating the launch of Uncle Ben's Rice. He was the son of the company founder Franklin Clarence Mars and his first wife Ethel G. Mars (née Kissack).{{cite web |url= http://www.practicallyedible.com/edible.nsf/encyclopaedia!openframeset&frame=Right&Src=/edible.nsf/pages/marsfamily!opendocument |title= Mars Family |work= Practically Edible |access-date= February 25, 2011 |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090504211100/http://www.practicallyedible.com/edible.nsf/encyclopaedia%21openframeset%26frame%3DRight%26Src%3D/edible.nsf/pages/marsfamily%21opendocument |archive-date= May 4, 2009 }}
Early life and career
Mars was born March 21, 1904, in Wadena, Minnesota, the only child of Franklin Clarence Mars, the founder of the Mars Candy Company, and his first wife Ethel Gale Mars (née Kissack; 1882–1980). He was raised by his maternal grandparents in North Battleford Saskatchewan, Canada,{{cite web | url=https://www.madeinchicagomuseum.com/single-post/mars-inc/ | title=Mars Inc., est. 1911 | date=8 March 2021 }} after his parents' divorce when he was just a child. He rarely saw his father who remarried to Ethel Veronica Healy in 1910. He had a half sister, Patricia Mars. After high school, he entered the University of California, Berkeley, and later transferred to Yale University, where he completed a degree in industrial engineering in 1928.{{Cite web|url=https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/forrest-mars/|title=Forrest Mars-M&Ms (Lemelson-MIT Program)|website=lemelson.mit.edu|access-date=2022-09-19}}
As an adult, Forrest Mars reunited with his father at Mars, Inc. However, the pair ran into a disagreement when Forrest wanted to expand abroad while his father did not. For a few years he worked at the new plant in Chicago and supervised the development of the Snickers and 3 Musketeers bars. Frances Herdlinger, a newly hired chemist at the Chicago lab of Mars Inc, remembered "Forrest Mars would turn up often with something new for us to try."{{cite news |last1=Williams |first1=Melissa |title=Meet Frances Herdlinger |url=https://comomag.com/2018/05/30/meet-frances-herdlinger/ |access-date=30 June 2020 |publisher=COMO Magazine |date=May 30, 2018}}{{cite news |last1=Carlile |first1=Olga Gize |title=The Three Musketeers Was Her Project |publisher=Journal Standard |date=June 10, 1995 |location=Freeport, IL}} Mars then took a buyout from his father and moved to England where he created the Mars bar and Maltesers while estranged from his father in 1933. In Europe, Mars briefly worked for Nestlé and the Tobler company.
In 1934, he bought a British company, Chappel Bros, specialized in canned meat for dogs. Due to the lack of competition, Forrest took control of this market as he launched and marketed Chappie's canned food.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pwHJCgAAQBAJ&q=Frank+mars+created+snickers+bars+in+1930&pg=PA21|title=Corporate Cultures and Global Brands|last=Rothacher|first=Albrecht|date=2004-10-25|publisher=World Scientific|isbn=9789814482585|language=en}}
After he returned to the United States, Mars started his own food business, Food Products Manufacturing, where he established the Uncle Ben's Rice line and a pet food business, Pedigree. In partnership later with Bruce Murrie, Mars developed M&M's, the chocolate candy covered in a crunchy shell which "melts in your mouth, not in your hands," in 1940. They were possibly modeled after Smarties. Peanut M&M's were introduced in 1954{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7-WcKK01H1cC&q=peanut+m&pg=PR54|title=Fast Food and Junk Food: An Encyclopedia of What We Love to Eat|last=Smith|first=Andrew F.|date=2012|publisher=ABC-CLIO|page = liv|isbn=9780313393938|language=en}} although Forrest had been allergic to peanuts his entire life. Murrie later left the business.
Following the death of his father, Forrest Mars took over the family business, Mars, Inc, merging it with his own company in 1964.
He was married to Audrey Ruth Meyer (b. May 25, 1910, in Chicago, d. June 15, 1989, in Washington, D.C.), and they had three children – Forrest Jr., John, and Jacqueline.
Mars retired from Mars, Inc., in 1973, turning the company over to his children.
In 1980, retired and living in Henderson, Nevada, he founded Ethel M Chocolates, named after his mother.{{cite web |url= http://www.ethelm.com/about_us/default.aspx |title= About Us |publisher= Ethel M Chocolates |access-date= February 25, 2011 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110209163559/http://www.ethelm.com/about_us/default.aspx |archive-date= February 9, 2011 |url-status= dead }} Ethel M was purchased by Mars, Inc. in 1988.{{Cite book |last=Allen |first=Lawrence |title=Chocolate Fortunes |year=2010}}
Mars died at age 95 on July 1, 1999, in Miami, Florida, having amassed a fortune of $4 billion. Forbes magazine ranked him as the 30th richest American (Forrest Jr. and John were 29th and 31st, respectively) and as the 103rd wealthiest person in the world. He left the business jointly to his three children.{{cite web|author=Kerry A. Dolan|url=https://www.forbes.com/forbes/1999/0705/6401153a.html?sh=189613187720|title=200 Global Billionaires: 103. Forrest Edward Mars Sr.|website=forbes.com|date=July 5, 1999}}
Mars was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1984.
Legacy
Mars had a "disagreeable" personality, but was highly intelligent in business practices.{{Cite news |last=Losos |first=Joseph |date=10 January 1999 |title=Author offers a taste of two chocolate fortunes |work=St. Louis Post-Dispatch |pages=5}}
See also
References
{{Reflist|refs=
|url= https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/life-on-mars-the-mars-family-saga-has-all-the-classic-elements-exacting-father-prodigal-son-who-fled-to-slough-thrusting-grandchildren-and-the-reversal-of-traditional-values-one-of-the-worlds-richest-companies-the-bar-that-made-them-famous-arrived-60-years-ago-this-week-1535722.html
|title= Life on Mars: The Mars family saga has all the classic elements
|first= Joel Glenn |last= Brenner
|work= The Independent
|date= July 26, 1992
|access-date= February 25, 2011
}}
}}
Further reading
- Brenner, Joel Glenn (1999). The Emperors of Chocolate. Random House. {{ISBN|0-679-42190-4}}.
- Cadbury, Deborah (2010). Chocolate Wars. HarperCollins. {{ISBN|978-0-00-732555-9}}.
External links
- Profile in Fortune Magazine, published in 1967, republished March 31, 2013. [http://fortune.com/2013/03/31/the-sweet-secret-world-of-forrest-mars-fortune-1967/]
{{Mars brands}}
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Category:American billionaires
Category:American food company founders
Category:Businesspeople from Minnesota
Category:20th-century American businesspeople
Category:20th-century American Episcopalians
Category:Burials at Lakewood Cemetery
Category:Businesspeople from Saskatchewan
Category:Businesspeople in confectionery
Category:People from Wadena, Minnesota