How WWII made Hershey and Mars Halloween candy kings
Each year, Hershey manufactures 373 million of its signature milk chocolate bars. Although the company does not publish exact statistics on Halloween sales, you can bet many of those who are in buckets in the shape of a plastic jack. Hershey also produces a few other heavy Halloween strikers in similar quantities, producing 25 million cups of peanut butter from Reese and 70 million Hershey kisses a day. But last year, Mars Inc. gave a race to Hershey for their money when M & MS exceeded Reese like the most popular Halloween candies of this year. Mars makes a huge 400 million candies coated with sugar every day.
Some different factors helped Mars and Hershey maintain their Halloween alley hegemonies year after year. There is the element of nostalgia: parents often want to give their children the same candies they loved when they were small. There is the fact that the two companies go hard on practical and unique packaging, often in festive colors. And then there is good old -fashioned American advertising. The last Halloween season, Mars spent $ 9.4 million in marketing, closely followed by Hershey at $ 8.6 million.
But the way these candies are so anchored in the American psyche in the first place have in fact to be seen with a less obvious source: the American army.
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World War II shortage of sugar
During the Second World War, sugar was rare in the United States. From April 1941, he became the first food to be rationed. Many other articles, such as nylons and women’s car tires, have also joined the rations list to ensure that the government could obtain the necessary raw materials for military vehicles, parachutes and other equipment. But the reason we ran at low sugar content was a simple supply chain problem.
Before the war, a large part of the United States sugar came from the Philippines. But when Japan invaded the island nation in 1941, it cut one of the main providers of American sugar. In addition, many merchant cargos which would have normally transported Hawaii sugar cane, the largest national producer of raw material in the country, had been reused in military ships.
“There was no way to obtain Hawai’i sugar cane from processing factories in the United States,” said Elizabeth Aldrich, who writes over the period CAN and JELL-O PUPS, OPERATORS: American Food and the Cold War, 1947–1959.
With so weak sugar supplies, it could be assumed that American candy companies were an early victim of war. However, Hershey managed to continue to make a fast chocolate company during the war – just as you could expect.
Presentation of military quality chocolate – the ration bar of ration
When rationing sugar entered high speed, Hershey already had a contract with the US military. In 1937, the government approached the candy manufacturer and asked them to make a dense calorily bar of chocolate that could resist high temperatures. Admittedly, these specimens were far from everything you will find in your Halloween mixture. According to Sam Hinkle, the chief chemist of Hershey at the time, they were invited to make bars which “have a little better taste than boiled potato”.
If it looks like a low bar, it’s by design. The ration bar was for the emergencies, which meant that it could not be too tasty, or the troops would polish it right away. The final product, made of oatmeal, cocoa butter, sugar, chocolate, powdered milk and vitamin B1, was dense like a brick.
“They did this really horrible thing, which broke a soldier’s teeth and caused diarrhea and all kinds of bad things,” said Aldrich. The packaging advised by moving the bar and dropping it into boiling water to soften.
Nevertheless, the ration of ration of served their objective. Only three of the bars wrapped in 1,800 calories, or almost enough to respond to the bare minimum for a day. The soldiers transported them to the beaches of Normandy on D -Day, as well as their ration kits, which contained treats like coffee, cigarettes and something closer to commercial chocolate – also made by Hershey, of course.
America, Courageous (and Chocolate) House)
Keeping spirits among American troops during the Second World War was indeed not an easy task. The victims were high, the conditions were lamentable and the finest points of geopolitical policy were lost on men in their twenties in conflict.
“One of the problems that the United States had was to convince its soldiers that it was fighting for a cause,” said Aldrich. “Most of these soldiers had never been to Europe before. The idea of ​​the American way as the best way of life was the thing that prevented a lot of these soldiers from losing their heads. ”
Chocolate was not a cause in itself, but what it represented. All these young men grew up under the great depression, when food was often a matter of survival rather than pleasure. The idea of ​​America as a place of abundance, where there was chocolate and food for everyone, was powerful.
While sugar became more difficult to find during the Second World War, “March and a few other candy companies were presented in front of the congress and they said:” Oh no, we really need these sugar expeditions, “explains Aldrich. “Hershey said,” We keep morale for our soldier’s boys to remind them of the great American way and come home for a better life. “”
American soldier with Japanese child Saipan 19
While Hershey continued production, the chocolate bars found their way to American prisoners of war in the care packages and civilians in cities and cities newly released across Europe. During Berlin air transport, American pilots parachuted 23 tonnes of candies to the Germans below. A pilot, Gail S. Halvorsen, became so famous for having abandoned the treats that he won the nickname “Candy Bomber” or “Der Schokoladen Flieger“(” The Chocolate Pilot “). Although it initially acts external orders, the military seized the moment. The image of the Americans bringing chocolate to children of the world was forever engraved in popular history.
Background in your mouth, not in your hand
Hershey was not the only company to prosper during the Second World War. Mars has provided chewing gum to the troops, as well as another candy still extremely popular to date. In 1941, Forrest Mars Sr. received a patent for M&M, which was made exclusively for the American army. “They were responsible by the American government to offer a candy that could be used in the tropics and subtropics,” explains Aldrich.
Mars had seen a similar candy with a sustainable sugar shell during the Spanish civil war. He jumped on the idea as a way to create a soft easy to transport. “This is where the idea of ​​chocolate melts in your mouth, not your hand comes,” explains Aldrich. The OG M&M were all ordinary chocolate, but they came in half a dozen different colors.
In 1947, the company began to sell these many colored chocolates to the masses – and the rest belongs to history. An entire post-war generation grew up with M & MS, with “The Great American Chocolate Bar”, as the Hershey bar was formerly called. Since then, they have been a pillar of the button or treatment, and this Halloween will undoubtedly be not different, because the tiny epidermen and Elsas flood the neighborhoods with pillow pillowcases overflowing with M&M and Hershey bars.
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