M&M Company | M&M: M&M Company, Forrest Mars, Sr., son of the Mars Company founder, Frank C. Mars, copied the idea for the candy in the 1930s during the Spanish Civil War when he saw soldiers eating British-made Smarties, chocolate pellets with a colored shell of what confectioners call hard panning (essentially hardened sugar syrup) surrounding the outside, preventing the candies from melting. Mars received a patent for his own process on March 3, 1941. Production began in 1941 in a factory located at 285 Badger Avenue in Clinton Hill, Newark, New Jersey. When the company was founded it was M&M Limited. The two “Ms” represent the names of Forrest E. Mars Sr., the founder of Newark Company, and Bruce Murrie, son of Hershey Chocolate’s president William F. R. Murrie, who had a 20 percent share in the product. The arrangement allowed the candies to be made with Hershey chocolate, as Hershey had control of the rationed chocolate at the time.
The company’s first big customer was the U.S. Army, which saw the invention as a way to allow soldiers to carry chocolate in tropical climates without it melting. During World War II, the candies were exclusively sold to the military. The resulting demand for the candies caused an increase in production and the company moved its factory to bigger quarters at 200 North 12th Street in Newark, New Jersey, where it remained until 1958 when it moved to a bigger factory at Hackettstown. A second factory was opened in Cleveland, Tennessee, in 1978. Today, about half of the production of M&Ms occurs at the New Jersey factory, and half at the Tennessee factory.
M&M Company Founder
Mars was born in Wadena, Minnesota, and raised in Saskatchewan, Canada after his parents’ divorce when he was just a child. He rarely saw his father. After high school he entered the University of California, Berkeley and later transferred to Yale University, where he completed a degree in industrial engineering in 1928. As an adult, Forrest Mars reunited with his father at Mars, Inc. However, the pair ran into a disagreement when Forrest wanted to expand abroad while his father did not. Mars then took a buyout from his father and moved to England where he created the Mars bar and Maltesers while estranged from his father in 1933. In Europe, Mars briefly worked for Nestlé and the Tobler company. In 1934, he bought a British company, Chappel Bros, specialized in canned meat for dogs. Due to the lack of competition, Forrest took control of this market as he launched and marketed Chappie’s canned food. After he returned to the United States, Mars started his own food business, Food Products Manufacturing, where he established the Uncle Ben’s Rice line and a pet food business, Pedigree. In partnership later with Bruce Murrie, Mars developed M&M’s, the chocolate candy covered in a crunchy shell which “melts in your mouth, not in your hands,” in 1940. They were modeled after a candy that he had discovered while in Spain during the 1930s. It is believed that he got the idea when he saw soldiers eating a similar candy during the Spanish Civil War. Peanut M&M’s were introduced in 1954 although Forrest had been allergic to peanuts his entire life. Murrie later left the business. Following the death of his father, Forrest Mars took over the family business, Mars, Inc, merging it with his own company in 1964. He was married to Audrey Ruth Meyer (b. May 25, 1910, in Chicago, d. June 15, 1989, in Washington, D.C.), and they had four children – Forrest Jr., John, Janet, and Jacqueline. Mars retired from Mars, Inc. in 1973, turning the company over to his children. In 1980, retired and living in Henderson, Nevada, he founded Ethel M Chocolates, named after his mother. Ethel M was purchased by Mars, Inc. in 1988. Mars died at age 95 in Miami, Florida, having amassed a fortune of $4 billion. He was ranked as 30th in Forbes magazine’s list of richest Americans (Forrest Jr. and John were 29th and 31st, respectively). He left the business jointly to his three children. Mars was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1984.
