A more than 100-year-old company, Mars Wrigley’s brands such as Snickers, M&M’s, Twix, and Milky Way are some of the best known confectionery. The company is vigorously moving to expand its presence in ice cream.
“We do have the runway to grow because we do have some of the best brands on the candy side that we believe are very applicable in the ice cream business,” said Shaf Lalani, general manager for Mars Ice Cream.
The company first entered the ice cream space in 1986 when Mars bought Dove Bar. Four years later, it became the first Mars brand to enter the frozen category with Snickers. Today, its Mars Ice Cream division is an integral part of its future even though it is a much smaller business compared to the parent company’s multibillion-dollar candy operations.
Mars Wrigley has a “bold ambition” to triple the size of its ice cream business to $1.1 billion in sales globally by 2024, according to the company.
Mars Wrigley said it has the top brand in a swing of frozen novelty categories, including in convenience stores with Snickers Ice Cream Bar, sandwiches with M&M’s, and non-dairy in Kind Frozen. Meanwhile, sales for its Twix ice cream bar have risen 20% annually for the last two years, according to the company.
Its diverse ice cream portfolio allows it to reach consumers depending on their needs. Like Dove, it’s premium, while M&M’s and Twix are more mainstream. Those avoiding dairy can turn to Kind bars, pints, and smoothies. For now, the company doesn’t expect to bring other candy brands in its portfolio into ice cream, or take one defining brand attribute, like Kind in non-dairy, to something like Dove.
“Mars Wrigley’s ice cream brands benefit from the widespread popularity of its candy staples that have been on the market for decades, and people have grown up with those, and in a lot of cases, it’s new to them when they find out we make ice cream,” he said.
While sales and brand awareness for Mars Wrigley’s ice cream have been climbing for years, many people are still unfamiliar with them. To bridge that gap, the company has been investing more in innovation and new digital campaigns for brands such as Snickers. It recently spent money to market its M&M’s ice cream sandwiches for the first time in 13 years.