Have you ever looked at your half-eaten Kit-Kat and wondered ‘who’s the largest chocolate enterprise in the world’? Well, wonder no longer, as this list contains the top 10 largest chocolate companies globally.
- Orion Confectionery
- Annual sales: £1.43bn
- Headquarters: Seoul, South Korea
Since 1956, Orion has been producing confectionery items such as chocolate, candies, gum, nibbles, crackers, and biscuits.
Its flagship product, Choco Pie, is a marshmallow and chocolate cake that has become extremely popular throughout Asia and Russia.
- Glico Group
- Annual sales: £2.55bn
- Headquarters: Japan
You may not be familiar with Glico, but this leading candy and snack maker based in Osaka since 1932 is the creator of the legendary Pocky, a chocolate-coated pretzel-like cookie stick. As one of the Largest Chocolate companies in Eurasia, they sell products from Spain all the way to Malaysia.
- Pladis
- Annual sales: £3.6bn
- Headquarters: London, UK
Pladis, which was formed in 2016 by the merging of United Biscuits and Ulker, has over 300 years of confectionery tradition throughout its distinguished portfolio of brands (think Ulker, McVitie’s, and Godiva), with items ranging from chocolate bars and biscuits to cake and candies.
- Lindt & Sprungli AG
- Annual sales: £3.67bn
- Headquarters: Switzerland
Lindt & Sprungli, which celebrated its 175th-anniversary last year, has long been a premier maker of premium chocolate, known for its high-quality cocoa and trademark truffles. Their reputation as an elite confectionery manufacturer has catapulted them into being one of the Largest Chocolate companies in the world.
- Nestle SA
- Annual sales: £6.3bn
- Headquarters: Vevey, Switzerland
Nestle is the world’s largest food and beverage company, with over 2000 products in 191 countries. Its confectionery branch, which dates back to 1875, is the company’s most innovative, having invented white chocolate in 1936 and created the world’s first milk chocolate in 1875. MilkyBar, KitKat, Yorkie, Smarties, and Aero are some of their most well-known chocolate brands.
- The Hershey Company
- Annual sales: £6.53bn
- Headquarters: USA
This is the Duke of Chocolate in the United States. Milton Hershey developed a chocolate plant in central Pennsylvania once upon a time, around which he erected a whole town for his workers. In 125 years, the factory has grown to be one of the world’s largest and most technologically advanced. Reese’s, Hershey’s Kisses, and Twizzlers are some of their most notable brands.
- Meiji Co Ltd
- Annual sales: £7.73bn
- Headquarters: Japan
Meiji Co Ltd, a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Meiji Holdings, produces a wide range of confectionary items, from chocolate bars and biscuits to gummies and jellybeans, and currently holds a 24.7% share of the Japanese chocolate industry. Its most popular chocolate brand in Japan is the original Meiji Milk Chocolate bar, (Tokyo, 1926) and uses a recipe that hasn’t changed since the 1920s.
- Mondelez International
- Annual sales: £9.56bn
- Headquarters: US
Mondelez International, which was formed from the split of Kraft Foods in 2012, is a snack food behemoth with a portfolio of world-leading chocolate brands such as Cadbury, Oreo, Toblerone, and Milka. It operates in over 80 countries and while its well-known brands continue to sell well, with Oreo reaching a revenue milestone of US$3.1 billion in 2019, the cocoa behemoth is looking into premium and wellness snacking.
- Ferrero Group
- Annual sales: £10.36bn
- Headquarters: Luxembourg
The Ferrero Group is best known for its namesake chocolate, the Ferrero Rocher hazelnut cream-filled praline. Ferraro, which is now headquartered in Luxembourg, is present in over 170 countries, operates 25 factories globally, and is regarded as the world’s largest hazelnut supplier. It is still family-owned, with third-generation Giovanni Ferrero, Italy’s richest man, at the helm. Giovanni still sets his sights on even more expansion.
- Mars Wrigley Confectionery
- Annual sales: £14.35bn
- Headquarters: Chicago, US
If Hershey is the duke, Mars is undoubtedly the King of chocolate in the United States. M&Ms, Galaxy, Bounty, Maltesers, Snickers, and Mars, the company’s namesake chocolate bar, are just a few of the world’s most well-known chocolate brands. According to Forbes, the worldwide confectionery behemoth is not just the world’s largest chocolate corporation, but also the sixth-largest privately held company in the United States.
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