The chief executive leading Mars into savoury snack aisles is a blunt-spoken Dane who espouses the value of sustainable business.
Poul Weihrauch negotiated the $35.9bn takeover of Kellogg successor Kellanova, which will bring products including Pringles crisps and Cheez-It crackers into the Mars pantry.
The largest deal in Mars’s history will also put Kellanova’s brands under private owners: the descendants of Frank Mars, who launched a confectionery business making butter cream candy in his kitchen more than a century ago.
With their company owning a portfolio of brands from Snickers and M&M’s to Ben’s Original rice and Pedigree dog food, the family is America’s second richest, according to Forbes, with a net worth of $117bn, and fastidiously maintains its privacy.
But 56-year-old Weihrauch maintains a more public profile, appearing at such high-minded gatherings as New York Climate Week and last year’s COP28 climate summit in Dubai to preach that a hard-nosed focus on returns need not sacrifice sustainability.
“It’s possible to grow your business at the same time as you reduce your greenhouse gases,” he told the Financial Times in July, adding that given the company’s climate impact was equivalent to that of a small country, “I do think it’s worthwhile working on it, showing the world that you can make a difference.”
Bain, the consultancy, has described Weihrauch as a “key force behind Mars’s mission to put stakeholder impact at the core of the decisions that shape long-term strategy”.
A 1957 Mars Bar advert © Granger/Shutterstock
A focus on returns on investment was evident in late May when he invited Kellanova CEO Steve Cahillane to lunch in Chicago and conveyed Mars’s interest in buying the company, according to a narrative published in a securities filing. Weihrauch followed up later in the day with a written offer of $77 a share — a 28 per cent premium to the market price.
After Kellanova rebuffed the approach for being too low, Weihrauch came back with two higher offers. But he threatened to walk away when Kellanova suggested $85, according to the filing. With three other potential bidders circling, the companies in August agreed a deal at $83.50 a share.
Mars’s focus on sustainability is reflected in ambitious targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Climate action was “embedded” in the business, including for mergers and acquisitions, he wrote in a recent LinkedIn post.
Unlike much of corporate America, Mars has committed to reduce not only its own carbon output but also its exposure to emissions from suppliers, contractors and customers, known as “Scope 3” in policy circles. The company says total emissions have fallen by 16 per cent from a baseline year of 2015.
“It demands you set credible full value chain targets — no exceptions, no exclusions — and regularly report on progress or lack thereof, and why,” Weihrauch’s LinkedIn post read.
The Mars family’s portfolio includes Pedigree dog food © Mateusz Slodkowski/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images
Running Virginia-based Mars requires adherence to internal precepts: the “Five Principles” of quality, responsibility, mutuality, efficiency and freedom, and the four-point “Mars Compass” of financial performance, quality growth, positive societal impact and being a trusted partner.
Forty per cent of Weihrauch’s long-term pay incentives are based on non-financial metrics, such as cutting greenhouse gases.
Weihrauch began his career with Stimorol, a Danish chewing gum brand. He then moved to Nestlé to work in sales and marketing before joining Mars in 2000 as European brand leader for Snickers. After several senior roles, including eight years as president of the Mars petcare division, he became group CEO in 2022.
His communication style is direct, sometimes to the point of being harsh, according to one former colleague.
Juan Martin, another former Mars colleague, described Weihrauch as a born networker, intellectually curious, and “very open, very transparent and very direct.”
He said the Dane was an architect of Mars’s decision to expand from pet food into petcare, starting with the 2017 acquisition of VCA, a group of 800 animal hospitals, for $9.1bn.
Weihrauch supported Martin personally, he added, allowing him to work from his hometown in Spain when his mother was dying from cancer.
“Poul was usually the person that most people thought would be CEO of the company at some point,” Martin said.
Weihrauch, an owner of two dogs, is credited with doubling the pet division’s sales as it embraced a mission of making a “better world” for household animals.
He told an interviewer from the Swiss IMD business school this meant choosing to avoid segments such as grooming — “we didn’t see how it uniquely contributed to a better world for pets” — but making big acquisitions in businesses that solved “pain points” for animals and their owners.
Asked in July about the comments of a private jet executive who claimed pets polluted at least as much as personal aircraft, Weihrauch practically scoffed.
“What we need to think about is the vast majority of what goes into the formulation of pet food is things that you and I won’t eat,” he told the FT. “It’s heart, it’s lungs, it’s spleens. It’s residues of the abattoir industry.”
M&M’s candies are among the popular products owned by Mars © Mike Kemp/In Pictures/Getty Images
Adding Kellanova’s portfolio will bring savoury snacks, crackers, wholesale snacks and an international breakfast cereal portfolio to Mars. Expected to close in 2025, the deal is under review by regulators. Kellanova, whose shareholders are expected to approve the takeover in a vote on Friday, reported $13bn in revenue last year compared with Mars’s more than $50bn.
Some of the products are not known for their health benefits — one serving of 15 Pringles crisps, equivalent to roughly a fifth of a standard tube, contains 150 calories, 13 per cent of the FDA’s recommended daily consumption of saturated fats and 7 per cent for sodium.
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Mars is tacking on a new food portfolio at a time of concern over rising global obesity rates. Meanwhile, sales are surging for weight-loss drugs that sharply reduce calorie intake, such as Wegovy and Ozempic, prompting questions over future demand for snacks.
The company did not make Weihrauch available for comment. But in an August interview, he pointed to the rise of more wholesome snacks that include Kellanova’s NutriGrain brand of cereal bars and oat bites, and said Mars would continue to invest in improving the nutritional qualities of its brands.
He also suggested that demand was not going away, saying: “There’s a growing trend of snacking around the world which will continue to exist.”