Motley Fool Money - Chocolate Secrets from Inside Mars

Starting point is 00:00:00 If you're a small business owner, you already know what it takes to keep everything moving. You're juggling customers, invoices, and about 100 decisions every day. Thankfully, taxes don't have to be one more thing on that list. With Intuit TurboTax, you can get your business taxes done for you with a full service expert. TurboTax matches you with your dedicated tax expert. Who knows your industry understands your business write-offs and gives you the personalized advice your business deserves. upload your documents right in the app, hand everything off, and still feel like you're in the loop the whole way through. You can even get real-time updates on your expert's progress right in the

Starting point is 00:00:42 app, which makes it so much easier to stay on track. And you can get unlimited expert help at no extra cost, even on nights and weekends during tax season. Visit turbotax.com to get matched with an expert today, only available with TurboTax full service experts. With the Motleyville Money Extra, I'm Chris Hill. With Halloween coming up, let's talk about the business of candy. Specifically Mars, the company behind M&Ms and some of the most popular chocolate bars in the world. Started by the Mars family in 1911, it's one of the biggest private companies in America, as well as one of the most secretive. One of the few people to get inside is Joelle Glenn Brenner. At the time, she was a reporter for the Washington Post,

Starting point is 00:01:35 And when we talked in 2017, I asked her where the company's culture of secrecy comes from. Was it simply handed down from the original founders, or is it seen as a critical business advantage? The secrecy is a very interesting thing. First of all, I don't think many of your listeners know that the story of Willy Wonka, the Raul Dahl original story, he read in a petition between Cadbury and incredibly secretive, In this industry, and you'll understand it really quickly when I explain, the ingredients in the products, they're not a secret, right? I mean, everybody knows what's in an M&M, what's in a Milky Way, what's in a Mars bar, or somehow protect intellectual property. What can you do?

Starting point is 00:02:50 How do you gain an... So those are the things that all the candy companies were incredibly secretive about. If, for example, were to figure out how to put a crispy cookie, a bonbon of chocolate, which they did with their candy Ferreira Rochay, which is now very popular in the United States, that little, you know, credibly valuable. And I'll tell you, Forrest-Marz Sr., the Ferreira family had figured that out because getting a crispy cookie into a piece of chocolate that has right fat, it has cocoa butter in it, that has some liquid in it, These are things people don't think about when they eat candy, but there's a lot of technology and a lot of science that goes into making the candies that we eat. And when I talk about technology, I'm not talking about the Internet. I'm not talking about coding, but I'm talking about things, for example, at Mars,

Starting point is 00:04:02 their manufacturing systems on this planet that can match the production levels. What Mars can get out of its factories in a 24-hour period beats the competition. hands down. That's a huge trade secret. So when Mars has to have somebody come in from the outside, which is a little rare, but when they do have to bring someone in from the outside to fix something on that line or to fix a piece of equipment, they literally blindfold them. They don't want anybody outside of the company to see how they do what they do. All of those things become your trade secret. If you want to learn more, check out Joelle Glenn Brenner's book, The Emperors of Chocolate inside the secret world of Hershey and Mars.

Starting point is 00:04:53 I'm Chris Hill. Have a safe and happy Halloween. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.

Motley Fool Money - Chocolate Secrets from Inside Mars

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