Mars and Unreasonable Group partner to mentor entrepreneurs

Through its snacking division, Mars partners with the Unreasonable Group for an initial period of three years to create Unreasonable Food, a global initiative focused on supporting rapid growth companies.

The Mars Unreasonable Food partnership will focus on four pillars: Shaping the Future of Food, Improving Farmer Livelihood, Transforming Food Supply Chains, and Reimagining Sustainable Packaging. These four focus areas are designed to identify, and then accelerate, the areas Mars believes can make a meaningful and differentiated impact given the company’s global business footprint and operations.

Each year, Unreasonable will identify, privately invite, and unite growth-stage entrepreneurs best positioned to profitably solve sustainability challenges. Selection of these ventures will be a mutual decision between Unreasonable Group’s team and the Mars Snacking team. Over the course of the three-year partnership, Unreasonable Food aims to build a portfolio of approximately 40 solutions uniquely situated to solve Mars Snacking’s key sustainability challenges.

The first cohort, to be announced later this spring, will join Mars Snacking’s first Unreasonable Food program for a week-long gathering with mentors from the Mars Snacking global leadership team as well as Unreasonable.

Amanda Davies, global vice-president of R&D, sustainability, and commercial at Mars Snacking, said, “Mars has the experience, the energy, and the footprint to shape the food future. Doing nothing is not an option.”

Daniel Epstein, CEO at Unreasonable Group, said, “More than 25 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activity can be attributed to the way we produce, process, and package food. As one of the world’s largest food companies with some of the world’s most admired brands, Mars Snacking, in partnership with Unreasonable and the entrepreneurs we support together, is uniquely positioned to put that statistic where it belongs— in a museum. We cannot imagine a more compelling partner to set a new standard for sustainability in our food systems than Mars.”

The Mars Net Zero Roadmap aims to cut carbon by 15 million metric tons by 2030 across the company’s value chain.