Confectionery and Pet food giant Mars has announced it will buy ailing UK chocolate business Hotel Chocolat in a deal worth about £534mn, with a payday of about £280mn for the latter’s founders. The cash offer, which values the company at about £534mn on a fully diluted basis, represents a sizeable premium on the chocolatier’s share price on Wednesday and comes after Hotel Chocolat made a loss this year, amid sinking demand and the fallout from b...

From the beginning of 2023, the Coca-Cola system in Bulgaria has taken another important step towards its vision of a “World Without Waste”, introducing in phases and for the first time in Bulgaria tethered closures for the bottles of all its soft drink brands. This practical and functional innovation earned the company a prize in the Prize Pack 2023 National Best Packaging Competition. Traditionally, the fifteenth-anniversary edition of the competition was organi...

Companies from the food industry, part of the 22nd international familiarization mission of Medef35 – a regional structure of the largest French employers' organization MEDEF, which is a member of BUSINESSEUROPE together with the Bulgarian Industrial Association (BIA), visited the Mondelez factory in Svoge, where chocolate, biscuits and confectionery are produced and many new products and processes are developed for the global leader in the sector. Guests vi...

Profit and sustainable goals are not enemies, says Martin Dimitrov,Regional Category Manager at Mars Balkans Adriatics – one of the largest food manufacturers in the world with a brand portfolio including M&M's®, SNICKERS®, MARS®, ORBIT®, PEDIGREE®, WHISKAS® and more.   - What are the sustainable models and practices that your company has implemented in its operations?   - At Mars, Inc. we don't ju...

 Organic growth reached 7.8%, with pricing of 8.4% and real internal growth (RIG) of -0.6%. Growth was broad-based across geographies and categories. Total reported sales decreased by 0.4% to CHF 68.8 billion (9M-2022: CHF 69.1 billion). Foreign exchange decreased sales by 7.4%. Net acquisitions had a negative impact of 0.8%. Portfolio management progressing. In the third quarter, Nestlé announced an agreement to acquire a majority stak...