90’s ad for Mars Bars featuring Peter Elliot Olympic Athlete.

The Mars Bar is a chocolate bar manufactured by Mars Incorporated. It was first manufactured in Slough in the United Kingdom in 1932 as a sweeter version of the American Milky Way bar which Mars, Inc. produced in the USA (not to be confused with the European version of the Milky Way, which is a different confection).

A different chocolate bar with the same name was sold in the USA until 2002 when its name was changed to Snickers Almond Bar. It contained then, and still does, plain nougat, almonds, caramel and milk chocolate.

 

In 1932, Forrest Mars, estranged son of American candy maker Frank Mars, rented a factory in Slough and with a staff of twelve people began manufacturing a kind of chocolate bar that had not been seen before in the UK. At that time most chocolate was simply a solid block, whereas the Mars Bar consisted of nougat and caramel covered in milk chocolate. It was modelled after his father’s Milky Way bar, which was already popular in the US. Today the basic recipe is unaltered but the size of the bar and the proportions of the main components have changed over the years.

In 2002, the UK Mars Bar was reformulated and repackaged. The nougat was made lighter, the chocolate on top became noticeably thinner, and the overall weight of the bar was reduced slightly. The packaging was also redesigned with a less-bold and more cursive logo.

Additionally, the famous slogan “A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play” was also replaced with “Pleasure you can’t measure”. The reasoning behind this was to increase its “treat” appeal to the female market; previously, Mars had been associated with a somewhat masculine and sporty image.

Various sizes are made: miniature bars called “FUN SIZE” (19.7 gram); “Snack Time” (36.5 gram) which is sold in multiple packs; a lager multi-pack size of 54 gram, the regular sized single 62.5 gram bar; and a “Kingsize” 84 gram bar. The regular 62.5 gram single bar contains 284 calories.

In the UK, most Mars Bars are still made at the Slough Trading Estate.

Info taken from Wikipedia