National Candy Day: A few of my favorites candies!!!!

Today is National Candy Day. A day that we celebrate everyone’s favorite candies. Candies and sweets have been consumed for thousands of years. Egyptians persevered nuts and fruits in honey. The Aztecs and Mayans ate chocolate during religious rituals as early as 300 AD. Everyone has a favorite candy or candies. Here are three of my favorites.

Since November is also National Peanut Butter Lover’s Month, I will first talk about my favorite peanut butter candy: the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. The Peanut Butter Cup was created by H.B. Reese in 1928, a former dairy farmer and shipping foreman for Milton S. Hershey. Reese was inspired by Hershey and started his own candy business. The Peanut Butter Cup was first most popular creation. When Reese died in 1956, his sons merged the company with the Hershey Chocolate Company. As of September 2012, the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup is the best-selling candy in the U.S. with sales in the billions and fourth selling globally. The Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are now available in minis, miniatures and big cups as well as many different flavors including white chocolate.

Another favorite candy of mine is the Snickers bar. The Snickers bar was created in 1930 by the Mars Company and was named after the Mars family’s favorite horse. The candy bar consists of nougat, peanuts, caramel and covered in chocolate. The candy bar is available with almonds, peanut butter, miniatures, ice cream bars, dark chocolate and even energy bars. Snickers have had successful ad campaigns such as “Not Going Anywhere for A While?” and the now famous and popular campaign “You’re not Yourself when You are Hungry” which was featured as a Super Bowl Ad in 2010 with Betty White and Abe Vigoda playing football.

Lastly, Peanut M&Ms are my favorite. First introduced in 1954, the Peanut M&Ms were only in the tan colored shell. The multicolored shells didn’t appear until the 1960s when the Mars Company added the red, yellow and green. The Peanut M&Ms were also introduced at the same time as the famous M&M tagline “Melt in your mouth, not in your hand.” In March 2016, M&Ms is launching “Vote For Your Favorite Peanut” campaign, which will pitted the classic Peanut M&Ms against three new flavors: Chili Nut, Coffee Nut, and Honey Nut. Between March 1 and June 17, fans were be encouraged to buy and taste all four and then vote on their favorite. According to the company’s press release, the winner will be available in “open stock” by August 2016 and then in “mixed display cases” by September. I didn’t hear about this campaign until I researched the history of the Peanut M&Ms. Coffee Nut sounds promising but I think I’ll stick with the classic Peanut M&Ms. I’ll be on the lookout for the new flavors.

What are your favorite candies? Do you prefer sweet? Do you prefer chocolatey? Or do you like sour? With so many to choose from, it may be hard to pick just one.