Mars Chocolate sets industry challenge: Follow our lead in sat fat reduction

Mars Chocolate is today issuing an industry-wide call to action: for chocolate manufacturers to follow its lead and reduce the saturated fat content of their brands.

This September will see Mars’ iconic Mars bar, alongside Snickers, Milky Way and Topic hit the shelves with 15% less saturated fat per bar compared with their previous recipes: they now have the equivalent of 35-45% less saturated fat than the average of the top 25 chocolate brands per 100g*.

This unprecedented scientific achievement has seen Mars invest €10m, over 40,000 R&D hours and 5 years to keep these iconic products tasting exactly the same whilst significantly lower ing their saturated fat content.

The reduction, which will remove more than 600 tonnes of saturated fat per year from the UK diet, is the latest step in Mars’ ongoing commitment to improve its products’ nutritional composition. Mars is a proven leader in nutritional developments within confectionery and has made a series of commitments as part of its ‘Raising the Bar’ programme, including:

• minimising Trans Fatty Acid levels
• introducing clear Guideline Daily Allowances and front of pack labelling,
• completely removing artificial colours and flavourings from all chocolate bars

Fiona Dawson, managing director, Mars Chocolate UK said: “Having been the nation’s favourite for 78 years, the MARS bar holds a special place with UK consumers – this made it all the more important for us to keep the same great taste, and is the reason that this reduction in saturated fat represents such an achievement. We are and remain committed to improving the nutritional content of our products.”

Professor Judy Buttriss, Director General of the British Nutrition Foundation, said: “Saturated fat is a health issue that needs addressing by consumers and food manufacturers alike. In order to reduce total intakes across the population to below 10% of total energy intake, the formulation of all sources of saturated fat – even popular treats – needs to be tackled. Any initiative to reduce the amount of saturated fat in the UK diet is a step in the right direction.”

The reformulated bars have been independently taste tested to ensure that the taste and quality is exactly the same. The new MARS bar contains less saturated fat per bar than any other product in the Top 10 UK confectionery singles**.

This is yet another industry first for the iconic MARS bar, no stranger to leading the way: the MARS bar was the first bar available in multiple portion sizes and the first to be available in drink and ice cream variants.

* The equivalent of 35-45% less saturated fat than the average of the top 25 chocolate brands per 100g. This claim complies with the legal requirements relating to nutritional claims. Our “Reduced Saturated Fat” claims are based on a comparison of the saturated fat levels (grammes per 100g) of our reformulated brands compared with the average saturated fat levels (grammes per 100g) of the chocolate confectionery category, represented by the top-25 brands. We have reformulated the brands resulting in at least a 15% reduction in saturated fat levels in each new recipe.

** Top 10 Singles in UK from IRI Oct ’09 52 week £CSV