Mars Completes $36 Billion Mega-Acquisition, Global Snack Pattern Enters the Era of "Four-Power Competition"

On December 11, 2025, the century-old confectionery giant Mars officially announced the completion of its acquisition of snack giant Kellanova for $36 billion (equivalent to over 253.4 billion RMB). This transaction, which took 16 months and obtained 28 global regulatory approvals, not only set the largest acquisition record in Mars' 100-year history but also marked a complete reshaping of the global snack market pattern, moving from the previous "tripartite balance of power" to a new era of "four-power competition" dominated by PepsiCo, Mondelez, Mars, and Nestlé.
It is reported that Mars' "salty transformation" this time stems from the dual pressure on its core business: on the one hand, under the global health trend, consumers' vigilance against high-sugar snacks continues to rise. In 2024, the proportion of sweet categories in Mars' snack business still exceeded 80%, and the growth rate was lower than the industry average for three consecutive years; on the other hand, cocoa prices rose by 35% cumulatively from 2023 to 2025, and sugar prices fluctuated by more than 20%, directly compressing the profit space of the chocolate business. In 2024, Mars even lost the top spot of the world's largest confectionery company, which it had held for 11 consecutive years, to Mondelez.
The acquired Kellanova is powerful, with net sales of $12.7 billion in 2024. Its brands such as Pringles (18% of the global market share) and Cheez-It cheese crackers (No. 1 in the U.S. market) exactly fill the gap of Mars in the salty snack field. After the acquisition, Mars' Dove and Snickers, together with Kellanova's salty snacks, form a "sweet and salty" matrix, covering all scenarios of leisure, breakfast, and family storage. At the same time, with the help of Mars' channel advantages in China, Kellanova's products will quickly enter the Chinese salty snack market.
Industry analysts believe that this merger and acquisition is Mars' strategic breakthrough to cope with industry trends, and also reflects the upsurge in mergers and acquisitions in the food and beverage industry in 2025 - the total number of industry mergers and acquisitions increased by 20% month-on-month, 85% of the transactions were led by private buyers, and health and full-category became the core logic of mergers and acquisitions. However, Mars still faces challenges such as employee integration and intensified market competition, and whether its "sweet and salty combination" can truly leverage the 100-billion-dollar market remains to be tested by time.
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