With the Motleyville money extra, I'm Chris Hill.

With Halloween coming up, let's talk about the business of candy.

Specifically Mars, the company behind M&Ms, and some of the most popular chocolate bars

in the world.

Started by the Mars family in 1911, it's one of the biggest private companies in America,

as well as one of the most secretive.

One of the few people to get inside is Joelle Glenn Brenner.

At the time, she was a reporter for The Washington Post, and when we talked in 2017, I asked her

where the company's culture of secrecy comes from.

Was it simply handed down from the original founders, or is it seen as a critical business

advantage?

The secrecy is a very interesting thing.

First of all, I don't think many of your listeners know that the story of Willy Wonka,

the Rale Dahl original story, was based on the stories that he read in England about

the competition between Cadbury and Roundtree.

And his parody of the candy business as being this incredibly secretive, strange, eccentric

world was based in truth.

And there is a history within this industry, and you'll understand it really quickly when

I explain.

The ingredients in the products, they're not a secret, right?

I mean, everybody knows what's in M&M, what's in a Milky Way, what's in a Mars bar.

If you can't patent or somehow protect intellectual property with your products, what can you

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