Growing minis capacity: Mars to invest $109m to expand Dutch plant
Under the €100m investment, the Snickers maker will up the proportion of miniature products it produces from 25-30% to around 35% by 2025.
“This is due to the fact that in West Europe calorie intake is trending to lower down and sharing is getting more important. Miniatures are the right answer for that trend,” Marissa Roodenburg, corporate affairs coordinator at Mars Netherlands told ConfectioneryNews.
Mars’ Veghel factory currently produces 27m chocolate bars per day or 8.5bn per year. 25-30% of products are miniatures but the volume of minis will rise 4-5% in the next few years.
Mars’ mini products include Mars Mix, Twix Mix and pouch bag versions of Galaxy Minstrels and Maltesers.
The Veghel project
UK minis market
Research organization IRI recently said that share bags were the saving grace in a stagnating UK chocolate market. It told this site in November 2014 that Mondelēz International extended its lead in the domestic chocolate market thanks to miniature products such as Cadbury Dairy Milk Marvellous Mix-Ups.
“The main objective of the Mars 2025 project is to modernize the factory, create technological innovations, cluster several company divisions and creating an inspiring workplace for our employees,” said Roodenburg.
Mars said it was too early to say if the expansion would lead to new jobs at the Veghel factory.
The company recently began the first phase of the project, which will last two years. It will then move from phases two to six until the expansion is complete by 2025.
