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Mars, the prominent candymaker behind M&M’s and Skittles, pledged to invest an additional $2 billion into its domestic operations by the end of 2026 to build a more “resilient” U.S. business.
The hefty investment, announced Tuesday, includes a $240 million Nature’s Bakery facility in Salt Lake City, Utah, which is slated to open on Wednesday. The over-339,000-square-foot Nature’s Bakery site will create more than 230 new jobs in the region and help the company produce nearly 1 billion bars each year, according to Mars.
“The U.S. is our biggest and most important market, and a key engine of growth for the long term – not only through our legacy manufacturing footprint but also through the expansion of strategic acquisitions like Nature’s Bakery, which is already scaling quickly,” Mars CFO Claus Aagaard said.
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The company said this announcement builds on the over $6 billion investment it made during the past five years to boost U.S. production. Earlier this year, Mars opened a $450 million facility in Lewisburg, Ohio, for its Royal Canin dry pet food brand, creating up to 270 new jobs in the area.
The company said about 94% of Mars products sold in the U.S. are produced locally in the U.S.
The company joins a growing list of organizations that have outlined new investments in U.S. manufacturing that align with key objectives of the Trump administration, which has been using tariffs to encourage companies to bring manufacturing back to American soil and reduce reliance on foreign goods.
Several companies across the tech, pharmaceuticals and automobile industries have been unveiled amid the first several months of President Donald Trump’s second administration.
The administration previously touted that “Trump is on a mission to make America the manufacturing superpower of the world.” While economist Michael Szanto believes moving more manufacturing back to the United States is a “worthy goal,” he said it “will take time and will not be without pain.”
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Earlier this year, Hyundai planned to invest $20 billion to bring manufacturing operations to the U.S. followed by General Motors, which said it would invest $4 billion in its U.S. plants over the next two years to boost the manufacturing of gas and electric vehicles.
GE Aerospace announced a nearly $1 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing, while Eli Lilly announced that it was investing an additional $27 billion to boost domestic drug production, bringing the company’s total U.S. manufacturing investment to more than $50 billion since 2020.
In February, Apple also announced that it is committing $500 billion over the next five years, which will involve building an advanced AI server manufacturing factory near Houston, as well as doubling the company’s Advanced Manufacturing Fund from $5 billion to $10 billion.
“Building advanced factories like chip foundries can take years and cost billions of dollars,” Szanto said. He said prices may go up in the near term because the U.S. lacks “some of the people to even build some factories, let alone staff them.”
However, he said “our strength in manufacturing is that the United States has some of the greatest energy resources to power our factories cheaply” and that “in the future advances in automation and robotics will allow us to alleviate staffing shortages.”
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