The company is one of four from New Jersey on the list Watch video
Mars Inc., a company with several locations in New Jersey, has again been named among the best places to work in Fortune's annual list.
Google makes a return appearance at No. 1 on the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For list published Thursday -- having now topped the ranking in seven out of 10 years -- while Mars, which has been in the ranking for four years, drops from No. 85 to No. 99, just above Slalom, Inc., a technology consulting firm.
Mars Chocolate North America's headquarters and a plant that manufactures M&M's are both located at the same campus in Hackettstown, while the company's global chocolate headquarters is based in Mount Olive and the Mars Retail Group is in Mount Arlington. The company has a total of 1,500 employees in New Jersey.
Other New Jersey names on the Fortune list are Mount Laurel's Automotive Resources International at No. 24, Plainsboro pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk at No. 55 and Morristown-based Atlantic Health System at No. 79. In 2014, Mars ranked No. 76 on the list and in 2013, No. 95.
"We are delighted to be included on the list of the 100 best companies to work for in the U.S.," said Anthony Guerrieri, director of external affairs for Mars Chocolate North America, in a statement. "Of course, until we are No. 1, there will always be more work we can do."
The list mentions the Mars policy of offering 16 hours of paid time off for volunteering, its pension plan and 30-day paternity leave as positive aspects of employment with the company.
In a story for Fortune's March 1 issue called "Bitter Sweets: Inside Big Chocolate's Labor Problem," the magazine zeroes in on the status of the efforts of Mars and other chocolate companies to end child labor in the cocoa harvesting business in West Africa. Mars also made headlines in February by pledging to remove all artificial colors from its food products, which, in addition to M&M's, include chocolate bars and chewing gum.
When the candies debuted in 1941, M&M's were produced in Newark. The Hackettstown plant opened in 1958.
