Mars announces $25.5 million in upgrades to Ballarat factory

Mars Wrigley has announced it will invest a further $25.5 million at its Ballarat site over the next 12 months, improving its ability to innovate across its Bitesize Portfolio.

It follows $67 million invested at the site over the last two years, according to Mars Wrigley. As well as activities in the Bitesize Portfolio – which includes Pods, M&M’S and Maltesers – it would future proof production, including through raw cocoa and melted chocolate output, and strengthen sustainable packaging efforts.

“We have a commitment of making the majority of our product portfolio here in Australia, and we are cementing this further by unlocking greater capabilities to create new consumer-led product innovation whilst accelerating our sustainable packaging focus locally,” said Andrew Leakey, General Manager – Mars Wrigley Australia. 

“This latest investment will allow us to bolster our production capabilities for our Bitesize Portfolio, which will be critical to our growth over the coming three years. We see substantial opportunities in this space, with a number of exciting projects currently underway,”

The Ballarat site, which opened in 1979 with the Mars Bar as its main product, is a Regional Technical Hub for Mars Wrigley and the site where its Pods product was developed in 2004. 

It is the only site within the company that makes Pods, with approximately 1 billion pieces produced a year. These are exported to 17 countries. It also has capacity to make 5 billion M&M’S pieces annually.

The new investment follows the commitment made last September to spend $30 million at the site to allow it to introduce more variants to its chocolate bar lines and roll out asset improvements to the M&Ms and Pods production lines.

Picture: Mars Wrigley