Ever since I was a little kid, I was obsessed with sweets.
Maybe it was because my mom was a health coach who had this sneaky skill of keeping candy out of the kid's reach.
Or maybe it’s because Halloween is my favorite holiday over Christmas and my own birthday.
One thing I know for a fact is that my affinity for candy exploded into a full-blown romance when I took my first bite into a Snickers candy bar at age 7.
I was at the community pool in the middle of summer and craving chocolate. I meandered up to the snack bar to set my gaze upon the selection and was met eye-to-eye with a freezer full of different candy bars.
Snickers.
I had never tried it before, but it was calling my name.
The teenage worker grabbed the candy bar from its frigid home and placed it on the counter. In return, I handed over the $2.50 my mom had given me just moments before and sprinted away with my frozen treat.
Sitting under my beach towel, I unwrapped the Snickers and took the biggest bite I could fathom. The hard chocolate coating cracked under the weight of my young teeth. Thick caramel flooded my mouth and cool nougat followed closely behind, sending a sensation to my 7-year-old brain that propelled it into overdrive.
I had never eaten a candy bar like this before and I was hooked.
Fast forward two and a half decades and I still find myself gravitating toward a Snickers every time I’m at the checkout counter of any convenience store.
On my most recent trip, I was considering the idea that I knew very little about my favorite candy bar.Besides the fact that they produce some of the funniest commercials of my childhood, I couldn’t really tell you anything else about Snickers.
So like any candy obsessor, I spent the last week diving deep into the history of Snickers and to my surprise, found some very interesting and sweet facts.
Check it out…
Mars makes 15 million Snickers a day.
I know, I had to read that one twice just to make sure I was looking at it correctly.
15 million Snickers per day!
Can you guess how many peanuts it takes to do that? Try 100 tons.
Never in my life could I imagine what 100 tons of peanuts might look like but one thing is for sure, I could happily live off 15 million Snickers for the rest of my life.
Snickers was introduced to the world in 1930 by the Mars family.
The Mars family etched their name in the confectionery history books a long time ago, but in 1930, they cemented their spot with the invention of the Snickers candy bar.
Frank Mars was familiar with a snack that included nougat, peanut, and caramel, but it was missing something that took it over the edge. That was chocolate. Once he melted down the delicacy and coated the ingredients with it, there was no stopping the Snickers from becoming one of the most popular candy bars in the world.
It's named after the Mars first family horse.
Speaking of the Mars family, it’s said that the name for this candy bar came from the family’s love of horses. Not just a horse or two, we’re talking about a 3,000-acre horse property called Milky Way Farms.
Mar’s wife Ethel had an affinity for one specific horse named Snickers. When he passed away before the release of a new candy bar (hint, hint), Frank decided to name it after the horse, hence the name, Snickers.
It was called the Marathon bar in the UK for almost 30 years (1967-1990).
While all of us here in the United States have always known the candy bar as Snickers, in the UK, it was something quite different—the Marathon bar.
Why?
Back when Snickers first came out, the term sounded eerily similar to the term knickers which referred to a woman’s undergarments. In an effort to avoid any misinterpretation, they operated under the name Marathon in the UK for almost 30 years until Mars decided to call it one name around the world.
Set the Guinness record for the world's largest chocolate nut bar.
It’s been a while since I checked the Guinness World Record book, but best believe I didn’t miss when Snickers set the record for the largest chocolate nut bar in the world in 2020.
Measuring in at over two tons, it was the equivalent to over 41,000 single-serve Snickers bars. It took over 1,200 pounds of caramel, peanut, and nougat combined with 3,500 pounds of chocolate to make!
But, yeah, I think I could take it down.
Each Snickers bar has a limit of 16 peanuts.
I was always under the impression that there were an unlimited amount of peanuts inside each Snickers candy bar. Almost like there is someone sitting over your personal candy bar sprinkling a nice handful right into the caramel center and moving on to the next one.
But, alas, I was wrong.
Snickers actually found that there is an exact number of peanuts for a single-serve candy bar and that number is 16. 16 peanuts roasted to perfection and placed nicely in the middle of each Snickers bar is what we all need to take out taste buds to flavortown.
Snickers has been an official chocolate sponsor of multiple Olympic games.
Never did I think that candy bars would be the sponsor for the Olympic games but I guess the committee thought otherwise. Over the course of its time, Snickers has been the official sponsor of not one, but two Olympics games—Los Angeles, 1984, and Beijing, 2022.
While it seems a little weird that there is an “official chocolate sponsor” for the Olympics, I like to imagine all the athletes walking around the village snacking on Snickers while getting ready to win gold medals.
Snickers was the first fun-size candy bar along with the Milky Way.
I’ll never forget my second-grade teacher always having Snickers and Milky Way “Fun-Size” bars on her desk as a reward for students who did good deeds. Though they weren’t quite the same as a full-sized candy bar, they were always the perfect pick-me-up when school would get boring.
Nonetheless, I never knew that Mars was actually the first candy company to make fun-sized candy bars. Back in 1968, they launched a campaign completely focused on fun-sized bars and it absolutely exploded. At a time when healthy eating was on the rise, they were seen as the perfect way to get your snack without overdoing it.
All this talk about Snickers candy bars is making me hungry...
I’m sure it’s doing the same to you. Luckily, there are tons of Snickers in our digital candy aisles and right now, you can get them sent right to your front door for your snacking convenience.
