CANDY WORLD

THE MIXED UP TIMELINE

1980

BIG LEAGUE CHEW INTRODUCED

We all know that lollipops have been around since what seem like ancient times, but the Ring Pop wasn’t invented until 1979. Thus, Mr. Ring Pop is still a fairly new guy on the block, if we do say so ourselves! Back then, a man by the name of Frank Richards invented the treat as a way to help his daughter kick her thumb-sucking habit. Now that’s some innovative parenting, don’t you think?

The idea for malted milk balls originally began in England. In 1887, William Horlick created malted milk powder. At the time, he thought he would market it as a health food. Instead, the malted milk powder became a sweetener for everything under the sun. The idea to sweeten candy with malted milk came to fruition in 1936 when Forrest Malt created Malteasers, a malted milk center covered with chocolate. Sound familiar? Whoppers were originally introduced in the U.S. as Giants. In 1939, the Overland Candy Company brought these little guys onto the scene. 10 years later, in 1949, Giants became Whoppers, the name that’s stuck with them ever since. But why the name change?

For a while, the rich Europeans had all the fun, but over the next couple of centuries, cacoa and sugar became widely traded in Europe and North America, filling the growing demand for the chocolate drink among all the classes. In 1847, Englishman Joseph Fry figured out a way to create a chocolate paste to press into a mold, thus creating the candy bar. Nice going, Mr. Fry.In 1875, Henry Nestle realized that adding milk to the chocolate mixture makes it less bitter, another major milestone in the world of chocolate, soon followed by an even bigger one.The 1893 Chicago World’s Fair featured chocolate making machines that caught Milton Hershey’s eye (he was already rich from making caramel, but saw even more opportunity in chocolate, smart man). One year later, the world got the first chocolate bar from Hershey, marking the beginning of the mass-produced American candy bar.

In 1980, they introduced Big League Chew, a pink, shredded gum in an aluminum wrapper. The shredded gum was meant to look like the chewing tobacco so popular with the baseball players at that time.Within just the first year of its creation, Wrigley sold $18 million dollars worth of this newfangled habit-kicking treat! So I guess you could say that Big League Chew made it into the Big Leagues, itself!

1979

Ring Pops Invented

1939

GIANTS TO WHOPPERS

1916-1938

1930

Candy bar greatness

JELLY BEANS

The earliest reference to jelly beans is associated with Boston candy maker William Schrafft who urged people to send his jelly beans to Union soldiers fighting in the Civil War. Nothing helps ward off the discomfort of gangrene quite like a jelly bean, we guess.Jelly beans became a wide-spread American treat in the early 20th Century, sold with other penny candies, and in the 1930’s the popular association of jelly beans and Easter was firmly entrenched in our culture, most likely due to the ovate shape (that means ‘shaped like an egg,’ but we prefer the fancy word).

OF THE CANDY WORLD

MIXED UP TIMELINE