Life-Cycle Studies: Candy Bars

Stop at almost any checkout counter and you’ll find dozens of varieties of candy bars. In the United States, where people consume an average of 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of candy each per year, candy bars are associated with popular holidays like Halloween and Valentine’s Day. In Scotland, the deep-fried Mars bar, dipped in batter and immersed in a vat of boiling oil, swept the country in the late 1990s.

Some 150 new candy bars hit the shelves every year, but 65 percent of U.S. brands have been around more than six decades. The first composite bar, the Goo Goo Cluster, debuted in 1912, luring buyers with its mix of milk chocolate, caramel, marshmallow, and nuts. The 1920s were the heyday of candy bars, with the emergence of brands like Three Musketeers, Baby Ruth, and Snickers—still the best-selling bar of all time. (More short-lived were the Chicken Dinner and Tummy Full, touted as cheap meal substitutes during the Great Depression.)

Mars and Hershey control 75 percent of the U.S. candy rack. Switzerland’s Nestlé is the world’s largest chocolate producer, and British candy bars, like the Cadbury Crunchie, maintain a strong following worldwide.