M&M’s has been a huge part of American culture for more than half a century. The ads and promotion for this product have become a part of pop culture.
Forrester Mars first came up with the idea for M&M Chocolate Candies while traveling through Spain. He saw soldiers eating chocolate lentils coated with sugary candy; protected by the shell, the chocolate withstood the heat. After returning to the United States in 1940, Forrest Mars used this idea and founded M&M Limited in Newark, New Jersey, to create candies in a sugar shell.
Mars wanted to produce chocolate candies that could be sold year-round, especially in the summer when sales usually went down. He put his chocolate candy inside a candy shell, thereby preventing the chocolate from melting. It could be eaten neatly so that, as the ad says, it "melts in your mouth and not in your hand."
In 1941 M&M’s Brand Chocolate Candies was introduced as military rations during World War II.
M&M got its name from the initials of Mars and an associate, Bruce Murrie, the son of the president of Hershey Chocolate Co. The two worked closely together when M&M first started. Even the first machines used to manufacture M&M came from modifying the equipment used to manufacture the Hershey’s Kiss.
By the late 1940s M&M’s were available to the public. The candies came in six colors red, orange, yellow, green, brown, and violet.
After Valentine’s Day at the end of February 2008, M&M’s Brand introduced M&M’s Wildly Cherry Chocolate Candies marking the first time the brand used cherry fruit flavoring.
M&M’s chocolate
