Marabou.

Marabou was founded in 1916 by Johan Throne Holst, who already ran Freia, Norway's biggest chocolate company at the time. He decided Sweden needed its own dedicated chocolate maker, set up production in Sundbyberg outside Stockholm, and named the new company after the Marabou stork — the same trademark that adorned Freia's chocolate. The brand became Sweden's default milk chocolate almost immediately.

Throughout the 20th century, Marabou refined a specific milk-chocolate texture: slightly cooler in the mouth than continental brands, smoother than American milk chocolate, with a clean snap and a slightly sweeter dairy profile than Lindt or Cadbury. The bar is the canonical Swedish chocolate format — wide, segmented, in the iconic red-and-gold wrapper.

Kraft Foods acquired Marabou (and Freia) in 1993. When Kraft split into two companies in 2012, Marabou landed under Mondelez International — placing it under the same umbrella as Cadbury, Milka, Toblerone and Oreo. Despite the international ownership, Marabou is still manufactured exclusively at the Mondelez factory in Upplands Väsby, Sweden, and the recipes haven't been fundamentally changed.

In 2022, Mondelez invested approximately $22 million to build a new automated production line at the Upplands Väsby factory — capable of producing 28,000 chocolate tablets per hour. This investment has been quietly paying off through 2024-2026, with Marabou expanding international distribution (particularly in the US specialty channel and UK supermarkets) without compromising the made-in-Sweden manufacturing.

On the product side, Marabou has continued careful iteration — new flavour pairings (sea salt, pistachio, dark-chocolate variants), limited holiday formats, and a continued partnership with Daim that's expanded the crunchy-caramel sub-line. The brand has been disciplined about not over-extending — the core lineup is treated as untouchable, and most new SKUs are seasonal or experimental.