Mars is to invest €40m ($43.3m) in a chocolate factory in Germany, in part to support production of its Twix brand.
The four-year project at the site in Viersen in western Germany will see Mars install a new packaging line for Twix chocolate amid what the company said was growing demand for the product. The move would mean the additional bars could be packaged on-site.
A portion of the investment will also go into improving “the ergonomics of the workplace on the production lines” and supporting “more sustainable production”, Evelina Wagner, MD of the local Mars Confectionery Supply unit, said.
The privately-owned group employs more than 320 people at the Viersen site, which produces chocolate bar brands Twix and Balisto, as well as the boxed Celebrations brand.
At Viersen, Mars processes 59,300 tons of chocolate goods (equal to around ten million pieces of chocolate) a day. The company is aiming to manufacture 70,000 tons in 2026/2027.
More than 2,200 workers staff work across Mars’ six sites in Germany, which are located in North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Bavaria and at its M&M’s flagship shop in Berlin.
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“We are very proud that our volumes are growing while at the same time significantly reducing our factory’s energy requirements and emissions”, Wagner, said, adding the cash injection marked a “contribution” to its goal to hit net zero emissions in its “entire value chain by 2050”.
In 2021, the Snickers producer committed to cutting carbon emissions by 50% by 2030 across its full value chain, according to a 2015 baseline.
The group has made numerous updates to its emissions targets over the past few years. Two years ago, Mars announced it would look to hit net zero by 2050. Last September, the company said it had so far cut emissions by 8%, equal to 2.6m metric tons.
