The Economic Secret Hidden in a Tiny, Discontinued Pasta

Joe_A

This thread is growing legs! 😉

A couple of observations in no particular order . . .

Mars Bars are available from Amazon, 12 bars for $16.95!

https://www.amazon.com/Mars-Chocolate-Bars-12-Count/dp/B000L1GRQO

I don't remember the Mars Bar but I do remember the Sky Bar. 😀



A little tidbit about the Mars company:

"Mars was ranked as the fourth-largest privately held company in the United States by Forbes. [Edit: and now may be the third largest.] Headquartered in McLean, Virginia, the company is entirely owned by the Mars family."

Apparently, someone in the family must have been interested in marine electronics and sailing. Years ago they came out with an innovative marine radar call the Mars Vigil that had a hand-held keyboard, something not heard of at the time and probably not since - and easy to lose! The unit was developed especially for under 50-foot sailboats as the antenna was small and the power consumption light. It was made in the UK.

In the end, they could not compete with the likes of JRC, Raytheon, which partnered with JRC, and Furuno, among others.

Thinking about Sheepdoll's posts . . .

My small company designs specialized communications electronic systems including those used for recording systems that may be used in public safety command vehicles and may record tactical radio communications. This is not an advertisement!

We develop the specifications and do some of the hardware design, as well as assembly and testing after others build various components. A US company comes up with the printed wiring board layouts and another US company makes prototype boards. The boards are manufactured in Florida and a CNC operation prepares the boards for component insertion. Another company uses CNC equipment to insert the components and flow-solder or wave-solder the boards. Meanwhile we have a local machine shop fabricate prototype chassis and housing systems. Eventually they will make the final housings, but they'll farm out anodizing and screen printing for us. There may be 25 suppliers on a project. We'll get everything under our roof and put the stuff together, test it and get it ready for deployment. We are a boutique operation so we tend to build specialized things in small quantities that no one else wants to build. When large quantities are needed, the boards may be manufactured and stuffed overseas. We can do everything in the US when the item is specialized and not destined for mass production.

Here is an example of what we cannot do economically:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1851858092...5hLv6ynjyeF2JnV8TyZ4X5ME8=|tkp:Bk9SR4CN0ca9YQ

These are "cookie-cutter" items that would cost probably $30 to produce in small numbers in the US.

But when it comes to the defense industry, we in the US still do quite a lot domestically.

Cheers,

Joe

Archer

There is a Mars factory in Ballarat, Victoria where my wife is originally from. Some of her friends have worked there over the years, and on one visit to see her family, we took a tour. I couldn’t work there...I would be double my current size or dead if I did...

Archer

This thread is terrible - going to have get me a Mars bar soon (yes we still have them here)...

Archer

I know it's a competitor's product, but the best Canadian chocolate bar by far is a Coffee Crisp...

khanmu

You need to find a friendly UK person who can ship you Mars Bars, Bounties, Marathon (Snickers) - also Twix, Yorkie, Aero, Kit Kats , and Tony’s Chocolony (more high end and expensive) if you haven’t tried them…