Case Study: Mars Chocolate UK

In January 2010, Mars Chocolate UK raised the bar on reformulation by announcing a breakthrough in reducing the levels of saturated fat in some of their best-loved chocolate bars. It has taken Mars over fi ve years, 40,000 R&D man hours and over €10m investment across its European business to achieve, allowing the brands to maintain exactly the same taste and quality whilst improving their nutritional composition.

The project has achieved nutritional improvements in the composition of some of Mars' most popular brands. In the summer of 2010, Mars, Snickers, Milky Way and Topic chocolate bars all arrived on UK supermarket shelves with 15% less saturated fat.

In addition, the project has enabled Mars to support the Food Standard's Agency's Saturated Fat and Energy Intake Programme, helping to build stakeholder relationships and demonstrate the very positive work being carried out by the food industry in the fi eld of innovation and reformulation.

As a result of this initiative Mars, Snickers, Milky Way and Topic bars now contain 35 to 45% less saturated fat than the average of the top 25 chocolate brands, per 100g. This means that the standard Mars bar now has the lowest saturated fat level per bar of any of the Top 10 selling singles in the UK.

Silver winner 2010 Community Partnership Awards: Health and Wellbeing

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More Information

FDF has published a booklet Community Partnership Awards 2010 (pdf, 2Mb) featuring a range of company case studies from Community Partnership Award winners.