Where Are Snickers Candy Bars Manufactured?

A Snickers bar is one of the Mars family of treats, beloved around the world.  Snickers was the second product introduced by Mars, a family-owned company based originally out of Tacoma, Washington. When the Mars Company decided to take their successful formula of the Milky Way bar and create a new candy bar. The second product from the family was named the Snickers bar, after a favorite horse of the company’s owner. The Snickers bar soon became popular throughout the United States.

Snickers candy bars are now manufactured at several sites, including Albany, GA; Chicago, IL (where the company relocated in the late 1920s); and Waco, TX. Snickers bars remain popular all across the globe, as do many of the products from Mars, Incorporated.

Mars Company History

When Franklin C. Mars’ mother first introduced him to dipping candy, he had no idea he would make a career of the craft. By the time Mars turned 19, he was selling molasses chips as a confectioner for profit. Once he married and bore his first child, Forrest Mars, he moved into candy manufacturing and sales full time.

The factory made candy out of Tacoma, Washington with moderate success until, in 1923, his grown son Forrest Mars developed the confectionery treat which would become world-renowned as the Milky Way bar. In 1929, the Mars family relocated to Chicago. A year later, a brand new idea for a candy bar was developed. Peanut nougat, roasted peanuts, caramel, and milk chocolate were combined in the Snickers bar in 1930. The candy bar became a hit, becoming popular first in the United States. Worldwide popularity soon followed. Mars remained a family owned company (and still does today), marketing candies and confections all over the world. Forrest Mars remained famously reclusive until his death, in spite of the popularity of products such as M&Ms, named after the younger Mars and his father. Mars, Incorporated became popular throughout England with the success of the Mars bar and the equally popular Marathon.

The Snickers Bar

The Snickers would gain international renown as a candy bar, rivaling even the confections of the Hershey Company. Mars’ new confection, the Snickers bar, was known abroad as the Marathon bar, and until the early 1990s, the name Marathon was used to market the candy bar in Europe. When the name changed in 1990, the name Snickers became synonymous with the peanut-flavored nougat and chocolate bar with which America had been enamored for decades. While the Marathon name remains popular overseas, with grass roots groups attempting to revive the moniker, today the Snickers bar is known simply as “Snickers” over most of the globe.

The king-sized Snickers bar, a larger version of the confection, was phased out beginning in 2004 due to consumer concern over the health issues related to snack foods. Large Snickers bars have since decreased in size, and now come in most areas packaged as two separate bars, which can be shared or eaten on separate occasions. Nevertheless, the Snickers bar is still one of the most common candy bars throughout the world.

Snickers Bars Today

Where are Snickers candy bars manufactured? The Snickers bar continues to be manufactured in several locations in the United States, from Georgia to Texas. Bite-sized Snickers bars are still manufactured in Illinois, where the country relocated in 1929. Many products containing Snickers bars are available due to the popularity of the product. The Cheesecake Factory sells a cake with Snickers Bars as the main ingredient, and deep-friend Snickers bars have recently become popular in both America and abroad. The different ingredients in the UK and American versions of the bar make for a slightly different, but extremely similar confection. Snickers bars are now sold as Snickers over the entire world. While other candy bars are variable from nation to nation (for instance, the Milky Way bar is known as a Mars Bar in the United Kingdom, while the UK’s Milky Way is more similar to a Three Musketeers bar in the USA), the Snickers bar is known by the same name in nearly every country where it is sold.