SWEET TRIVIA
These individually wrapped candy facts are pretty tasty.
A lot of major candy bar brands were introduced by Chicago-based manufacturers, including Tootsie Roll, Baby Ruth, Butterfinger, Milky Way, 3 Musketeers, Oh Henry!, and Snickers. According to many food historians, trick-or-treating began in the Chicago area…with the encouragement of local candy companies.
Snickers bars were introduced in 1930. But when they were first sold in the UK, they were sold under the name Marathon. Reason: the manufacturer, Mars, Inc., didn’t want people to associate Snickers with “knickers”—British slang for underwear.
Since the 1860s, American store shelves have seen about 40,000 different types of candy bars.
Chocolate wasn’t terribly popular in the United States until the launch of the Hershey’s chocolate bar in 1900. In 1893 company founder Milton Hershey went to the Chicago World’s Fair and saw a German company manufacturing chocolate candy. He bought the demonstration equipment for a bargain price because the Germans didn’t want to pay to ship it all back to Europe.
Heath Bars (chocolate-covered toffee) have an incredibly long shelf life—about a year. They’re so durable that they were included in soldier ration packs during World War II. The manufacturer marketed it as a health food because it was made with “natural” ingredients (mostly sugar). An early slogan: “Heath for Better Health!”
Before he created the successful Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, which he named after himself, candymaker Harry Burnett Reese developed two products named after his children, the Lizzie Bar and the Johnny Bar. Both flopped.
What’s the difference between a Hershey Bar and a Mr. Goodbar? Mr. Goodbar is a Hershey Bar with peanuts added. In 1995 Hershey changed the formula it had been using since 1925. The switch: more peanuts.
Malted milk shakes (milk, chocolate syrup, malt powder, and ice cream) became pretty popular in early 20th-century soda fountains. That’s why the Milky Way was invented in 1923—it’s supposed to taste like a chocolate malt (but be more portable).
The 5th Avenue bar—flaky, peanut butter–flavored wafers covered in chocolate (similar to a Butterfinger)—was created in 1936 by William Luden, the man behind Luden’s Cough Drops.
“Junior Mints” is a play on Junior Miss, a hit Broadway play in the 1940s.
During the Great Depression, candymakers marketed their products as inexpensive meal replacements, giving their candy bars names like Chicken Dinner and Idaho Spud. Early Hershey’s chocolate bar wrappers bore the slogan “More sustaining than meat.”
According to the American Chemical Society, it would take 262 “fun size” Halloween candy bars to kill an adult. (But you’d probably throw it all up first.)
Hershey’s Kisses were once called Silver Tops.
In tests using “licking machines,” the manufacturer of Tootsie Pops determined that it took between 364 and 411 licks to reach the center. Human testers needed to take between 144 and 252 licks.
When Mars introduced a candy bar made of vanilla nougat with a dark chocolate coating in 1936, it was called Forever Yours. The bar was reintroduced in 1989 as Milky Way Midnight.
First product introduced by Brach’s Candy: individually wrapped caramels (1904). They sold for 20 cents a pound.
Candy bars hold their shape and melt in your mouth, not in your hand thanks to the innovations of chocolatier Rodolphe Lindt. He added cocoa butter (a mixture of chocolate and butter) into chocolate.
In Japan, you have to be an adult to purchase a special flavor of Kit Kat: the sake variety. It contains sake powder that’s 0.8 percent alcohol.
In 2009 Nestle introduced the Butterfinger Buzz, a candy bar fortified with 80 milligrams of caffeine—about the same as a very strong cup of coffee. It flopped.
Starburst was conceived by the Wrigley Company as a healthy candy. They’re citrus flavored and contain vitamin C.
World’s oldest candy bar: Joseph Fry’s Chocolate Cream Bar, introduced and mass-produced in 1866. But Fry’s bars weren’t like today’s candy bars because they were made with bittersweet chocolate. It wasn’t until 1875 that Swiss chocolatier Daniel Peter added powdered milk made by his neighbor to create the creamier, sweeter chocolate we know today as milk chocolate. The neighbor’s name: Henri Nestlé.
