Battle of the Chocolate Candy Bars: Mars Versus Hershey's

Hershey's is chocolate company that was founded in the year 1894 after Milton Hershey, a candy manufacturer, began using chocolate coating for his caramels. The Hershey Chocolate Company's birthplace was Pennsylvania, USA. Hershey's became the first to introduce milk chocolates. Hershey's is also the largest chocolate company in the US and is even listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Mars Inc. is another chocolate company that opened in 1911 in Tacoma, Washington. This was started by Frank Mars and his wife and continues to be a largely family owned business. Mars Inc. is now a manufacturer of pet foods, confectionary and other products. Mars is also now the only company to not use peanuts in any of their products.

Hershey's products range from chocolate candy, pantry items, snacks and sugar items to kosher products. The chocolate candies that Hershey's is most popularly known for include Kisses, which were a big hit when they first came out in the early 1900s and continue to be so. The Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Hershey's Milk Chocolate, Kit Kat, Krackel, Mounds and Mr Goodbar are only some of the many chocolates that Hershey's specialises in.

Apart from the chocolate range the pantry items include Hershey's syrup which can be had with milk, icecream or just about anything. Hershey's Peanut Butter and Hershey's chocolate for baking are a couple of other pantry items.

Hershey's has even acquired a licence to manufacture Cadbury's products and so the range includes chocolates such as Cadbury's Dairy Milk. The interesting thing about Hershey's is that they specify whether each of their products is kosher or not. Hershey's has a line of gum and mints as well in various flavours.

Hershey's apart from owning other companies also runs Hersheypark which is a chocolate themed amusement park.

Mars also produces chocolates with as much variety and popularity status as Hershey's. Mars is most famous for its M&Ms. M&Ms are chocolates with a protective candy coating to prevent it from melting. This was a revolutionary idea in its time of invention and was first made popular among the US forces before going to to become one of the world's favourite candies.

Twix, Mars Bars, Snickers and M&Ms feature in the chocolates that the company popularised. All these come in their icecream versions too. Mars Inc. is different from Hershey's in that it have diverged from manufacturing just chocolates to other areas such as petcare and food products such as rice. Pedigree, Whiskas, Cesar and Sheba are the well known names of Mars Inc. in the petcare segment.

Uncle Ben's is a top seller of package long grain rice in America that is produced by Mars Inc. Mars Inc. also manufactures vending systems called Klix for hot and cold beverages.

Mars Inc. has something else that Hershey's doesn't have and that is the range of main meal foods. Mars Inc. sells frozen pasta dishes and sauces under the name Dolmio. Suzi-Wan is their name for the range of oriental dishes, soups, sauces and vegetables.

It is also interesting to note that Mars has only very recently (May 2007) stated that their products will no longer be suitable for vegetarians and certain religious groups. They have begun to use rennet, an enzyme found in stomachs of new born calves in their products. Products such as Milky Way, Minstrels, Bounty, Twix, Snickers and Maltesers all include rennet now.

The revenues of Hershey's are $4 billion dollars while Mars has total annual revenues of $18 billion dollars. The difference is due to Mars Inc. having diverse interests but both Hershey's and Mars Inc. continue to compete in the chocolate category.