Health and Nutrition
Responsible Marketing
Mars encourages responsible consumption and helps people make informed choices through clear nutritional labeling and responsible marketing practices.
Marketing Code
We want consumers to trust their favorite Mars brands. This is why we have adopted a comprehensive global Marketing Code to ensure we follow strict guidelines when we advertise our products across all our markets2, wherever we do business. Read our full Marketing Code.
Compliance with our Marketing Code is audited annually by a third party in several countries. We are also part of an industry coalition, the International Food and Beverage Alliance (IBFA), which commits member companies to upholding shared marketing standards.
Mars seeks to support parents in making healthy choices for their children. One important aspect of the Mars Marketing Code is our commitment to not target advertisements to children under 12 years of age. In 2007, we were the first food company to announce a global commitment to stop advertising food, snack and confectionery products to children under 12.
Specifically, we do not buy advertising time or space if more than a quarter of the audience is likely to be under 12; nor do we advertise on websites aimed at those under 12. Visitors to our web pages have to enter their birth dates before downloading branded wallpapers or screensavers or participating in activities. Our advertisements and promotions never depict children under 12 eating snack foods, nor do we use them as spokespeople for our brands.
Our marketing code also outlines that Mars does not place vending machines offering our snack food products in primary schools and does not offer Mars-branded educational materials or sponsor sporting events at primary schools except in connection with established educational or public service messaging programs on responsible gum disposal and oral health care, and upon the request of schools.
In addition to our global Marketing Code, we have also signed country-specific marketing pledges around the world. Along with other major food companies, we have made formal public commitments to responsible advertising, which encourage collective action:
- The Responsible Children's Advertising Initiative of the Australian Food and Beverage Industry
- Brazilian Commitment on Food and Beverage Advertising to Children
- Canadian Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative
- The EU Pledge
- The GCC Marketing and Advertising to Children Pledge
- India Pledge: "We will change our food marketing to children."
- The Mexican Marketing to Children Pledge
- The Philippines Responsible Advertising to Children Initiative
- Russian Pledge "On limitation of advertising to children"
- South Africa Pledge on Marketing to Children
- The Swiss Pledge on Marketing to Children
- Thailand Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative
- The Turkey Pledge on Marketing to Children
- U.S. Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative
Nutritional Information
Our commitment to quality and responsibility extends to providing clear and meaningful information about our products and what's in them, so people can make informed choices. We adopted Guideline Daily Amount (GDA) labels to prominently display nutritional information on the front and back of our packaging and since 2008, we have been introducing this labeling in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the United States and other markets. We also follow all local nutrition-labeling regulations.
Mars, Incorporated is the first company to commit to using GDA labeling on confectionery products worldwide. Our goal is to implement GDA nutrition labeling on the majority of our chocolate and confectionery products globally by year-end 2011, and we will continue to apply GDA across our entire food portfolio. We are redesigning packaging on all these products to make sure the nutritional information provided is even more prominently displayed, making it easier for consumers to read and understand. This is in addition to other nutritional information, which some markets have been providing since the 1980s.
The label on the front of the pack displays the total calories in a single serving of the product. The back of the pack has the same information for calories as well as totals for fat, saturated fat, sugar and sodium.
Guideline Daily Amount (GDA) Labeling
GDAs are a guide to how many calories and key nutrients are present in a portion of a food or beverage and what each amount represents as a percentage of a person's daily dietary needs.
The labels are designed to help consumers quickly and easily locate key nutrition information and make informed choices about their diet, at point of purchase. Mars conducted market research that found this style and design to be the clear favorite among consumers.
The system for the GDA labeling was created by the Confederation of Food and Drink Industries of the European Union (CIAA) in collaboration with independent scientific experts.
For more information, see www.gda.ciaa.eu.
Find Out about Healthy Living Online
The Mars Healthy Living website provides information, expert advice and interactive tools for learning about and embracing a healthy lifestyle and includes nutritional information about our products. The site also introduces regional websites to make our healthy living messages more meaningful to local audiences, including:
2 Following acquisition by Mars, Wrigley adopted the Mars Marketing Code. Wrigley implementation of the Code was completed across geographies in 2010, with the exceptions of China, which will fully implement by the end of 2012, and India, which will fully implement by the end of 2013.
