Crisis in Candyland: Melting the Chocolate Shell of the Mars Family Empire - Hardcover

Pottker, Jan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1882605209 ISBN 13: 9781882605200

Publisher: Natl Pr Books, 1995

Synopsis

Exposing the hidden story beneath the sugar coating in the Mars candy company, the truth about a bizarre family dynasty that rules with an iron fist includes ruthless management, incredible penny-pinching, and managers bailing out by the dozens. IP.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

Part tabloid fare, part pop history, this patchwork portrait of the giant Mars candy company?Milky Way, Snickers, Three Musketeers, M&Ms?and its fabulously wealthy, intensely secretive founding family takes a bite out of the firm's reputation by washing some dirty linen in public: "Not even partitions separate the fifty-odd headquarters associates, who must keep their voices down when talking on the telephone to avoid complete babel.... Few desks have computers, for writing memos is against corporate policy." After interviewing former employees, family friends and competitors at Hershey, Nestle and so on, Pottker (Dear Ann and Dear Abby) tells how polio-stricken Midwest schoolboy Frank Mars, spellbound, watched his mother's candy-making magic, then failed at three businesses as an adult before launching the Milky Way candy bar in 1923 and an eventual worldwide food conglomerate. This business saga has a tyrannical crown prince who waited too long in the wings and died young, leaving his sons pitted against one another for company control; a profligate stepmother; a self-indulgent daughter; and a wealth of profit-making ideas, including the promotion of certain sweets as good for the teeth. He who snickers last...
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Even with the different standards by which the rich are sometimes judged, use of the adjective eccentric seems to be de rigueur in any profile of Forrest Jr., John, and Jacqueline Mars. Together, they are worth, estimated conservatively, $10 billion. The company founded by patriarch Frank Mars is now responsible for such icons of American culture as M & M's, Snickers, Milky Way, Dove bars, Uncle Ben's rice, and Pedigree dog food. In stark contrast to the comfortable image these products engender, the company itself is seen as secretive and autocratic, the Mars brothers as niggardly and vindictive. Mars, Inc., is often compared to the organization with which it shares McLean, Virginia, as headquarters--the CIA. Here Pottker attempts to penetrate the stone wall of secrecy built up around the company as she reports company and family business, noting that mistrust and misjudgment have cost Mars its once dominant position. Pottker is also the author of Born to Power: Heirs to America's Leading Companies (1992). David Rouse

About this edition

• Publisher: Natl Pr Books
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 1882605209
• ISBN 13: 9781882605200
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 255