Tasty facts you might not know about M&M's (2024)

They melt in your mouth, not in your hand

M&M’s are one of the world’s most-loved candies. The colourful hard-shell chocolates can be found everywhere from shopping malls to the White House and space. Here are some tasty facts you might not know about the double Ms, including where the idea came from, why the characters had a makeover and how two workers fell into a vat of chocolate.

A chocolatey mishap occurred at the M&M's factory

In a turn of events that could’ve been lifted straight from the Seventies classic film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, two workers found themselves stuck fast after they fell into a vat of chocolate at the Mars M&M factory in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. The waist-high (Augustus) gloop was so thick that lifting them out the way they came in proved impossible. Afire crew had to resort to cutting a hole in the side of the tank to rescue the pair, who were sent to hospital for checks.

M&M’s stands for Mars and Murrie

Ever wondered what M&M’s stands for? The answer is Mars and Murrie, referring to Forrest Mars (the son of the founder of Mars, Frank Mars) and Bruce Murrie (the son of longtime Hershey President William Murrie). The unlikely pair went into business together at the start of the Second World War in 1939. Nowadays,the brands are archrivals.

M&M’s used to contain Hershey chocolate

In the beginning the little candies were made with Hershey chocolate. Murrie was able to promise Mars a reliable cocoa supply despite wartime rationing, so the duo agreed to collaborate. However, post-war Mars bought back Murrie’s 20% share and eventually stopped using Hershey chocolate.

The idea for M&M’s came from Spain

To understand where the idea came from, we have to rewind a few years. Fed up with his father, Forrest Mars moved to Europe to set up his own business and, on a trip to Southern Spain (possibly accompanied by Rowntree who launched Smarties) hesaw soldiers eating chocolate.At the time, warm weather was a problem for the chocolate industry, but these candies had sugar shells that prevented them from melting. This is where Mars got the ingenious idea from and the slogan “melts in your mouth, not in your hand”.

The first M&M’s factory was in New Jersey

They originally came in cardboard tubes

Though you’re used to seeing M&M’s in a plastic packet, they came in a brown cardboard tubewhen they were first launched.You popped open one end and they poured easily into your hands. Also, the lid could be snappedback on if you only fancied a few. The brown bags came into play in 1948.

Initially only the military could have them

Another surprising fact about the candy favourite:in the beginning it was only available to the military. The tubes of chocolate were included in soldiers' rations and wereidealas they didn’t melt and could be resealed. It wasn’t until later in the decade that civilians could get their hands on them.

The original colour selection included violet

The first M&M’s came in six colours: brown, yellow, orange, red, green and violet.Then, in 1949, violet was switched to tan. Later, the company asked customers to vote for which colour they wanted in the pack and the winner was blue.Nowadays, you’ll find brown, yellow, orange, red, green and blue. But, as fans of the candy will know,they all taste the same:the shell doesn’t signify a flavour.

M&M’s are stamped with the “m” so you know they’re the real deal

For the first decade, M&M’s shells were bare and indistinguishable from similar candies. It wasn’t until 1950 that they got their signature “m” stamp and the slogan "Look for the m on every piece"was born.In fact all of Mars’ chocolates havea way of identifying them without their wrapper. Have you ever noticed the ripple on top of a Mars bar?

You’ll never find M&M’s with imperfections

Forrest Mars was a stickler for quality control. He was known to call up sales associates in the middle of the night and order a batch be recalled if he so much as saw a candy where the “m” wasn’t printed directly in the centre. Meanwhile, the level of bacteria on the floor in a Mars factory is apparently less than an average kitchen sink.

Mars denies it copied Hershey’s Reese’s Pieces

People thought the green ones were aphrodisiacs

In the 1970s a rumour started that green M&M’s were an aphrodisiac. In schools across America, students could be found rummaging around for the offending shade and feeding them to their crush. At one point you could buy packets that consisted purely of green M&M’s (sold by an unofficial company). Later on, Mars capitalised on the hearsay and launched the flirtatious green M&M’s character Ms. Green.

The red ones disappeared for a decade

Between 1976 and 1987, there were no red M&M’s – but not because Mars ran out of food dye. At the time Red Dye No. 2 was thought to be carcinogenic and the FDA banned it. Even though it wasn’t used to make the chocolate candies, Mars decided to remove the colour from the packet to avoid confusion.

M&M’s are the most common chocolate in space

Very few brands can say they’ve sent their products to space, but M&M’s is one of them. In 1981 the chocolate treats were included on Space Shuttle Columbia in the astronauts’ food supply and they’re still taken on space missions today – astronauts use them as entertainment, throwing them into the air and catching them in their mouths.

M&M’s paid £3.5 million ($5 million) to be the official snack food of the Olympics

Ready to go global, M&M’s paid £3.5 million ($5 million) to be named “the official snack food of the 1984 Olympic games” held in Los Angeles. It needed a brand that could be recognised in every nation (at the time Snickers was called Marathon in the UK). With worldwide recognition, M&M'sexpanded into Asia Pacific, Australia, Europe and Russia.

The M&M’s characters were introduced in the Nineties to help sales

By the 1990s M&M’s sales had dropped and the company needed a plan. It hired ad agency BBDO and gave them a small budget to turn things around.The solution? Turning the candies into characters with distinct personalities, voicing them with comedians and making them appear in adverts with celebrities. Red was sarcastic, Yellow the goofball, Blue the cool one, Green the seductress and Orange the neurotic one – America loved them.

M&M’s used the Super Bowl to debut Ms. Brown

Hitting the big time, M&M's used the Super Bowl to debut its second female character,Ms. Brown, the brains of the gang. The 30-second spot cost as much as £2.8 million ($4 million) and was seen by an average of 111.3 million viewers back in 2012. Since then the comedic characters have made a number of reappearances to entertain fans at halftime.

There are more varieties than plain, peanut and peanut butter

Thought M&M’s options were limited to plain, peanut and peanut butter? You’d be mistaken. You can get myriad varieties including caramel, crispy, mini, pretzel, mint, fudge brownie, white chocolate, coffee and almond. However, the original three are unsurprisingly the favourite.

You can personalise M&M’s

There are M&M’s Worlds in seven major cities

InBloomington, Orlando, Las Vegas, New York, Shanghai, London and Berlin, multi-storey M&M’s Worlds are big tourist attractions. Here you’ll find candies in every shade imaginable, different flavour varieties, personalised sweets and merchandise such as mugs and t-shirts.

There are M&M’s boxes with the presidential seal in the White House

M&M’s chocolate takes a long time to make

Four to eight hourssounds like a long time to make a teeny tiny chocolate, but the factory starts from scratch withmilk, cocoa butter and sugar. After the chocolate is processed, it’s rolled into M&M’s shapes which arecoated in a sugar shell. Finally, the individual candies are weighed out in the packaging room and sealed into bags.

Billions of M&M’s are produced every day

The characters got a makeover

Next time you see the colourful M&M's characters, look closely and you'll notice a small difference in each one. That's because in January 2022, the new mascots got a subtle makeover. Their arms and legs are now a faded tint that matches their candy shells, while their shapes havealso slightly changed. In the shoes department, the height of Brown's heels are much lower, while Green (pictured) now has sneakers instead of high-tops. The new look was part ofMars, Incorporated's"global commitment to create a world where everyone feels they belong". Whatever they look like, we think they're still as delicious as ever.