News

X5 Retail Group has resumed purchasing Mars confectionery products for Pyaterochka and Perekrestok supermarket chains after a six-week break. This was reported by the media, citing the company's press service.

"We are pleased that our favourite Mars products will be available to our customers and are confident that the agreements reached will guarantee stable and predictable supplies in the future," the company said. It also noted that the resumption of co-operation was the result of a "long and constructive negotiation process" and that the parties had managed to agree on terms that create "the basis for a long-term and mutually beneficial partnership".

Shipments of Mars products to Pyaterochka and Perekrestok stores have been stopped since 23 July. X5 said that the supplier's proposed terms did not comply with "fair pricing principles".

The ban affects products in the category of chocolate bars, candies (sold by weight, prepackaged and in sets), sugar-coated candies and chewing gum. Mars produces and sells Snickers, Twix, Bounty, Mars, Milky Way, Korkunov chocolate bars and candies, M&Ms and Skittles sugar-coated candies, and Orbit, Eclipse and Wrigley's chewing gum in Russia.

X5 stated that the stock of products should be sufficient for about two months, until August-September, and then it was planned to replace them with equivalent products. Supplies of pet food produced by Mars (Pedigree, Whiskas, Kitekat, Perfect Fit, Sheba, and Royal Canin brands) were not suspended.

Mars regretted the decision by X5, with whom it has enjoyed "many years of fruitful relations".

Mars, which is one of the world's largest confectionery manufacturers, did not withdraw from Russia after the military operation began, but has suspended its Russian exports and imports, new investment, advertising and social media activity.