Click 'Read Original' for details Just over a year after taking office, Mars Wrigley China President Clarence Mak has quietly left the company. As Mars' largest business unit in China, Mars Wrigley owns numerous snack brands including Dove, Snickers, and M&M's. Yesterday, Foodinc confirmed from Mars China that Mak has left Mars, and the current president of Mars Wrigley China is Larry Feng. Additionally, Foodinc learned from sources familiar with Mars that Larry Feng is temporarily succeeding Mak.

-01- New Leader The aforementioned account profile also stated that before joining Mars, he held senior finance roles at various companies, including CFO of Metro China, a retail chain. Foodinc's review of public reports found that during Larry Feng's tenure at Metro China, an article titled "Metro 'Goes Online'" published by 21st Century Business Herald mentioned that Metro China's Vice President and CFO was Feng Liu. The article also noted that during Metro China's e-commerce expansion, Feng Liu had extensive discussions with some operational executives of Metro's physical stores about the 'conflict' between online and offline channels. In other media interviews, Feng Liu also pointed out that he hoped e-commerce would not conflict with physical stores, and that developing e-commerce was to expand new customers. From Feng Liu's career experience, he not only has years of Mars work experience but also accumulated experience in large offline retail and e-commerce. Given that sales of 'impulse purchase' categories like candy and chocolate have shifted more from offline to online since the pandemic, Mars Wrigley's choice is understandable.

Some brands under Mars Wrigley China

-02- Transformation In recent years, with the increasing demand for healthy consumption, snack categories like candy and chocolate, which are higher in sugar and calories, inevitably face growth challenges. In fact, Mars Wrigley, as a leading player in the sugar and chocolate market, has already begun transforming, extending its reach into more new areas to build a 'big snack' platform.

In this process, one of Mars Wrigley's strategies is to integrate existing products with high-growth categories, such as nuts. Mintel's China Snack Consumption Trends report released in January this year pointed out that nut snacks remain the largest snack subcategory by market share and have shown strong growth over the past five years. Foodinc noticed that its brand Dove launched a new chocolate product this year mixed with hazelnuts, cashews, and composite cereal. Additionally, to control calorie intake, this product was designed in individual small packages. Earlier in 2018, Mars Wrigley also introduced the American premium healthy snack brand BE-KIND, which focuses on nut bars, to the Chinese market. This year, BE-KIND also launched customized flavors for the Chinese market. Last year, the company also invested $20 million to build a dedicated BE-KIND production line in Jiaxing, hoping to launch more localized products suitable for the Chinese market.

BE-KIND - Oolong Milk Flavor Pecan Nut Bar

On the other hand, Mars Wrigley, seeking expansion, has also entered more high-growth categories, such as ice cream. Mintel's aforementioned report stated that with the emergence of 'internet-famous products' and the rapid development of online channels, the ice cream subcategory has also shown strong growth in recent years. Foodinc has reported that Mars Wrigley China introduced its ice cream business this year, launching related products under Dove, Snickers, and Maltesers, with 'early sales results satisfactory'.

-03- Future While transforming, Mars Wrigley is also accelerating its pace to lay out future growth. Mintel pointed out in the aforementioned report that one of the major drivers of future growth in China's snack market is increased availability, i.e., easier purchase. More delivery options such as fresh food apps and O2O (online-to-offline) retailers ensure consumers can buy snacks anytime, anywhere. After Mars Wrigley officially signed a cooperation agreement with O2O retail platform JD Daojia at the beginning of the year, by September this year, the two sides announced deepening strategic cooperation, clarifying that in the future, they will focus on 'scenes' as the core to build a new 1-hour shopping experience marketing strategy.

Mintel's report also stated that 'as post-90s and post-00s become the main consumer force, their strong willingness to consume brings greater market opportunities for snacks.' To attract more young snack lovers, Mars Wrigley is also continuously building a younger brand image. Taking Dove as an example, when blind boxes became popular among young people, the brand launched a co-branded gift box with the popular blind box IP 'Molly' this year. Foodinc previously learned that according to Dove's Tmall consumer profile, the cross-border co-branding activity with Molly increased the proportion of young consumers in Dove's consumer base by 8 percentage points.

In January this year, Mars Wrigley also announced the construction of a global gum and candy innovation center in Guangzhou, investing nearly $10 million to increase R&D. At that time, Justin Comes, Vice President of R&D at Mars Wrigley China, stated that the establishment of the innovation center means that the Mars Wrigley business unit has R&D and production for all categories in China, making China the only market in the world where Mars has both a chocolate innovation center and a gum and candy innovation center. He also said: 'In line with the company's China strategy of 'from pursuing existence to striving for relevance' and Mars Wrigley's business goal of 'opening a new era of snack food', we hope to provide hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers with higher quality products and services through innovation in products and production capacity, creating more beautiful and joyful moments.'

Source: Foodinc (ID: foodinc), Author: Tomato