50 Fun Facts About M&M's

In what year did M&M's first go into production in the United States?

Forrest Mars received his patent for the coating process on 3 March 1941. The first factory was on Badger Avenue in Newark, New Jersey.

The two Ms stand for Forrest Mars and which partner, whose father ran rival Hershey?

Bruce Murrie held a 20 percent share and the deal guaranteed Hershey chocolate during wartime rationing. He sold out to Mars in 1949.

Forrest Mars got the idea for M&M's after seeing Spanish Civil War soldiers eating what?

The British sweet was made by Rowntree's, which had sold 'Chocolate Beans' since at least 1882. Rowntree chose not to sue and the two firms agreed to divide up markets.

Who was M&M's first big customer?

During the Second World War the candies were sold only to the military, because the shell let soldiers carry chocolate in tropical heat. Demand forced a move to a bigger Newark plant.

Which of these was NOT one of the original 1941 M&M's colours?

The launch line-up was red, yellow, violet, green and brown. Violet gave way to tan in the late 1940s.

M&M's longest-running slogan, introduced in 1949, promised the candy melts in your mouth, but not where?

The line sold the whole point of the hard sugar shell. A year later a black 'M' was printed on each candy; it turned white in 1954.

The printed 'm' on each candy was originally which colour when it was introduced in 1950?

It switched to the familiar white in 1954. The letter is the brand's trademark and is printed on only one side.

Peanut M&M's, the first alternative variety, launched in 1954 in which single colour?

Yellow, red and green peanut candies followed in 1960. Yellow the spokescandy was originally simply called 'Peanut'.

Why did Mars drop red M&M's in 1976?

The suspect dyes were Red #2 and #4; M&M's used the uncontroversial Red #40 but were pulled anyway. Orange took red's place in the bag.

Red M&M's returned in 1987 partly thanks to a joke campaign started by a student at which university?

Paul Hethmon's Society for the Restoration and Preservation of Red M&Ms became a worldwide phenomenon. Orange stayed on, so red came back as a sixth colour.

In 1995 the public voted to replace tan with a new colour. Which won, with 54 percent of the vote?

Voters called 1-800-FUN-COLOR, and Mars lit the Empire State Building in the winning colour. B.B. King sang the blues in the launch ad.

Mars's first 'Global Color Vote' in 2002 added which colour for a limited run?

NASCAR driver Ken Schrader ran cars painted for each candidate colour. A bag of all-purple candies won one lucky American 100 million yen.

Since 1958 about half of all M&M's have been made in which New Jersey town?

The other half come from a plant opened in Cleveland, Tennessee, in 1978. The original 1941 factory was in Newark.

In 1982 Mars declined to feature M&M's in which Spielberg film, handing a windfall to Reese's Pieces?

Mars reportedly feared the alien would scare children. Reese's Pieces sales are said to have jumped by as much as 300 percent.

Which rock band's tour rider famously demanded a bowl of M&M's with all the brown ones removed?

It was a test: brown candies in the bowl meant the venue had not read the technical rider carefully, so the crew would re-check the stage rigging.

Which colour M&M was the subject of a 1970s urban legend that it was an aphrodisiac?

The rumour shaped the flirtatious Green spokescandy and inspired all-green Valentine's bags in 2008. No colour has ever tasted different from another.

Who created the modern CGI M&M's spokescandies in 1995, having earlier made the California Raisins?

He deliberately made the characters more sardonic and grown-up than typical food mascots. Red was first voiced by Jon Lovitz and Yellow by John Goodman.

Which actor originally voiced the sardonic Red spokescandy?

Billy West took over later. J.K. Simmons voices Yellow, and Phil Hartman voiced Chocolate Bar, a rival mascot who always melted.

Ms. Brown, the 'Chief Chocolate Officer' unveiled in 2012, is voiced by which actress and singer?

She was the first new female spokescandy since Green in 1995. Purple, voiced by Amber Ruffin, joined in 2022.

In a Super Bowl LII ad, Red wished to become human and was played by which actor?

He found a lucky penny and wished he was inedible. The joke was that everyone still wanted to eat him.

Which comedian replaced Mars's 'retired' spokescandies in January 2023, launching 'Ma&Ya's' clams?

The stunt followed a conservative-media fuss over the characters' redesigned shoes and outfits. The candies were 'reinstated' at a mock press conference after the Super Bowl.

Which colour spokescandy first appeared in September 2022 singing 'I'm Just Gonna Be Me'?

She is voiced by Amber Ruffin. A purple candy also entered the bag for the first time since the original violet was dropped in the 1940s.

Which NASCAR driver's No. 18 car carried M&M's sponsorship from 2008 to 2022, winning two Cup titles?

He won the championship in 2015 and 2019 with Joe Gibbs Racing. Mars ended the deal after 2022, then returned in 2026 with a throwback car for Ty Gibbs.

The first M&M's World store opened in 1997 in which city?

It stands four storeys tall next to the MGM Grand and drew eight million visitors in 2007. Shanghai's, opened 2014, is the only one in Asia.

Because MM is a Roman numeral, M&M's styled themselves as the official candy of what in 1998?

MM equals 2000. The same year saw the launch of the multi-filling 'rainbow' variety.

In 1990 Mars covered a life-size fibreglass cow with about how many M&M's for a stunt at the Erie County Fair?

Every candy was glued on by hand with the 'm' facing out. Designer Michael Adams claimed it earned a million dollars of free publicity.

Special red, white and blue 'Presidential M&M's' have been given to White House guests since which year?

The box carries the presidential seal and the sitting president's signature. Contrary to legend the candies themselves are not stamped with the seal, though some embassies do hand out seal-printed ones.

The 'Plain' M&M's variety was renamed what in 2000?

'Plain' had only been coined in 1954 to distinguish it from Peanut. Pictures of the colourful candies were added to the brown packaging at the same time.

Which 1967 Petula Clark song did M&M's adopt for its TV ads in 2004?

The ads used newly recorded cover versions rather than her original. It matched the brand's colour-driven marketing.

M&M's Minis, sold in plastic tubes, arrived in which year?

Their mascots, the Swarmees, were troublemakers Red and Yellow could never contain. Crispy M&M's followed in 1999.

Which M&M's variety debuted in 2010 with a nervous non-candy sidekick?

Pretzel Guy hated the idea of being stuffed inside a candy. Coconut had gone permanent the same year after a 2009 limited run.

Which of these was one of five heavily Hispanic US cities where dulce de leche M&M's were tested in 2001?

Los Angeles, San Diego, Miami, McAllen-Brownsville and San Antonio got them. The flavour flopped and was gone from most areas by 2003.

A standard plain M&M weighs roughly how much?

That is about 4.7 calories apiece. Every colour tastes exactly the same, despite what many people insist.

Mars, Incorporated, maker of M&M's, is headquartered in which Virginia community?

The company moved there in 1984 and remains entirely owned by the Mars family. Forbes ranked it the fourth-largest private company in the US in 2022.

Frank Mars founded the first Mars candy factory in 1911 in which city?

That venture failed against local rival Brown & Haley. The company proper began in Minneapolis in 1920 as the Mar-O-Bar Co.

Which bar, introduced in 1923, did Frank Mars credit to his son Forrest's idea after a malted milkshake?

It became the best-selling candy bar and funded the family's Milky Way Farm horse-racing estate. Forrest later made a similar bar in England under his own name.

Estranged from his father, Forrest moved to England in 1933 and created which two products?

He started in a small kitchen in Slough with a $50,000 buyout from his father. He came home during the war and launched M&M's.

After retiring in 1973, Forrest Mars founded a premium chocolate company in Nevada named after which relative?

Ethel M Chocolates opened in 1980 in Henderson, Nevada, and Mars Inc. bought it in 1988. Its cactus garden is one of the world's largest.

Besides M&M's, Forrest Mars launched which rice brand in a venture with a Texan businessman?

He also founded the Pedigree pet-food business. The rice was rebranded Ben's Original in 2020.

In Europe, M&M's replaced which two existing Mars candy brands in the 1990s?

Treets had been the European cousin of the peanut candy for decades. Minstrels and Revels are still sold as related Mars brands.

A 2012 British pack of red, white and blue Peanut M&M's was released to mark which occasion?

Yellow dressed up as British stereotypes in the ad trying to get in. Two years later a green-yellow-blue 'Brazilian' pack promoted the World Cup.

In 2025, Mars announced that from August 2026 M&M's would be sold in a version made without what?

It marks a shift toward natural colourings across the core line. In Europe, red candies already use carmine from cochineal insects.

The 1996 Christmas ad where Red and Yellow meet Santa and both faint has what distinction?

'They do exist!' has re-aired every December since. Hershey's Kisses ran a similar seasonal ad.

Reese's Pieces, the candy that took the E.T. deal, aims for what colour split?

They contain no chocolate at all, just a peanut-butter penuche centre. They had launched only in 1978.

Which three colours were added to the M&M's mix in 1960?

Red was then pulled in 1976 during the dye scare and orange took its place until red returned in 1987.

In which Tennessee city did Mars open a second M&M's factory in 1978?

It joined the original Hackettstown, New Jersey plant, which had been running since 1958.

Which spreadable-legume-filled variety joined the line-up in 1991?

It kept the standard colour scheme, unlike Peanut M&M's, which launched in a single shade in 1954.

To celebrate the 1995 colour vote, which landmark did Mars light up in blue?

The result was announced on network newscasts and on the Letterman and Leno talk shows.

Which early-1980s M&M's spin-off came in pale green or brown, stamped with a crown, with a 'whisper of mint'?

Only the green shells carried the mint flavour; the line vanished long before Mint Crisp and Dark Mint arrived.

To mark the 2014 World Cup, UK Peanut M&M's packs contained only green, yellow and blue candies to echo which flag?

Two years earlier a red, white and blue pack had marked the Diamond Jubilee and London Olympics.