I am not sure if it is because my Dad (HI DAD!) has worked for Mars almost my entire life, or if I am just one of those crazy people that thinks that the colors of M&Ms taste different, but I have always preferred the green ones. Of course it doesn't hurt that the green one is the saucy female character in the stylish white patent leather booties and gloves either. However, the Hackettstown, NJ plant has now given "green" a whole other meaning by turning on their solar panels to help power their operations in making these candy coated, melt in your mouth not in your hand treats.
In an article featured on www.inhabitat.com, the Mars plant now operates 1/5 of their power from solar energy that is derived from an 18 acre property layered in the panels owned by PSEG Solar Source. This effort makes Mars the largest solar panel operator in the state for food manufacturing and it is the 11th largest solar generation facility in the US. Running this amount of energy for the plant is equivalent to taking 140 cars off of the planet for good per year. As the article says, "every 5th M&M that you eat comes from the sun." Pretty cool. Over the Halloween holiday, a number of articles ran in advertising trade publications that compared the online efforts of Mars and Hershey's. Mars came out on top for almost all of their efforts having a richer landscape of interactions with their consumers online through sponsorships, contests, websites and social media (no one will forget the great Skittles debacle that force quit Twitter for a morning). While they have proved to dominate the online space, they are definitely moving ahead in offline work as well with this renovation to their plant. Chalk this one up to another win against their competition.
It has been interesting to watch how green efforts have been branding products recently. Going green has become a realistic trend among consumers and companies alike over the past few years. It seems that the deeper our pockets get, the less we are concerned about saving anything, but when we are struggling in economic times, charity and good measures stretch our dollar further. When we buy, we want to feel especially good about it. This means everything from candy to cars. There has been an increase in production of hybrid cars (almost every brand has their own version now) as well as products from hair care to chips being produced using reusable energy or packaging. A great example of this in recent media is SunChips, in which their ads features their new compostable bag equipped with seeds grow plants after being buried underground for several weeks. The bags will be coming to stores on Earth Day 2010 and the ads help consumers to visualize how innovative the packaging really is by showing them the results. SunChips, a product of Frito-Lay Corporation who already uses solar energy to produce the chips, is on the frontier of something that will help to change the consumer perception for packaging. I have no doubt that thousands of brands are already attempting to follow SunChips's lead and developing their own green packaging of this kind, because like any other trend (especially one that is beneficial to the Earth) consumers will begin to demand it of other brands in their life. It makes us feel a little less guilty about indulging in these kinds of snacks when we are doing something great for mankind. Imagine if everything we threw away could help grow sometime to sustain our planet?
Of course there will be no planting of M&Ms to grow flowers any time soon, but by Mars starting to lead the way among confectionery brands, we can see how being green can be applied to any product in the market. I hope that M&Ms will use this to their advantage as they move forward in their campaign about not only using the best ingredients in their chocolate but how it is now made to provide consumers with a more sustainable lifestyle on Earth. Everyone loves chocolate, especially when they know that it could be helping the planet. A snack we can truly feel good about.
I always new the green one was the best...
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