Snickers

Snickers

Type	Confectionery
Current owner	Mars Incorporated
Introduced	1930

Snickers is a candy bar made by Masterfoods USA of Hackettstown, NJ, a division of Mars, Incorporated. It consists of peanuts nougat topped with roasted peanuts and caramel, covered with milk chocolate.^[1] Snickers is the best selling chocolate bar of all time and has annual global sales of US $2 billion.^[2]

The original Snickers was formerly sold as Marathon in the UK and Ireland.^[3] More recently, Snickers Marathon branded energy bars have been sold in some markets.^[4] In May 2008, Mars, Incorporated was rumoured to temporarily re-launch the Marathon bar.^[5]

History

In 1930, the Mars family introduced its second product, Snickers, named after their favorite horse.^[6]

Renaming in UK and Ireland

In the UK and Ireland, it was originally sold under the name Marathon. Mars standardized many of its global brand names and the name was changed to Snickers in 1990. For 18 months before the name changed, the words "Internationally known as Snickers" were printed on the side of the Marathon wrapper. Following the name change, the bar moved from being Britain's ninth most popular bar to the third most popular.

Mars has since re-registered the original name as a UK trademark.

Snickers Duo

A replacement for the king size Snickers bar, was launched in the UK in 2004, and designed to conform to the September 2004 Food and Drink Federation (FDF) 'Manifesto for Food and Health'. Part of the FDF manifesto was seven pledges of action to encourage the food and drink industry to be more health conscious.^[7] Reducing portion size, clearer food labels, reduction of the levels of fat, sugar and salt were among the FDF pledges. Mars Incorporated pledged to phase out their king-size bars in 2005 and replace them with shareable bars. A Mars spokesman said: "Our king-size bars that come in one portion will be changed so they are shareable or can be consumed on more than one occasion. The name king-size will be phased out."^[7]

These were eventually replaced by the 'Duo', a twin bar pack. Though this change to Duos reduced the weight from 3.7 to 3.29 ounces (100 to 93 g), the price remained the same. Splitting it into two bars, enables sharing or saving one bar for another time. The packaging even has step-by-step picture instructions of how to open your 'Duo' into two bars, in four easy-to-follow actions.^[8] As Mars stated fulfillment of their promise, the Duo format was met with criticism by the National Obesity Forum and National Consumer Council.^[9]

Australian recall

In July 2005, tens of thousands of Snickers and Mars Bars were removed from New South Wales store shelves due to a series of threatening letters which resulted in fears the chocolate bars had been poisoned.^[10] Mars received letters from an unidentified individual indicating that he planned to distribute poisoned chocolate bars to store shelves.^[10] The last letter he sent included a Snickers bar contaminated with a substance which was not identified.^[10] This substance was later identified as rat poison. The letters claimed that there were seven additional chocolate bars which had been tampered with which were for sale to the public.^[10] As a precautionary measure, Mars issued the massive recall.^[10] Mars said that there had been no demand for money, only complaints directed to an unidentified third party.^[10]

Ingredients

In the US, Snickers ingredients are: milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, skimmed milk, lactose, milkfat, soy lecithin, artificial flavor), peanuts, corn syrup, sugar, skim milk, butter, milkfat, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, lactose, salt, egg whites and artificial flavor.^{[citation needed]}

In the UK, Snickers ingredients are: sugar, peanuts, glucose syrup, vegetable fat, skimmed milk powder, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, lactose, demineralised whey powder, milk fat, salt, emulsifiers (soya lecithin, E442), egg white, natural vanilla extract and hydrolysed milk protein. Milk chocolate contains milk solids 14% minimum.

Products containing Snickers

In the early 2000s, deep fried chocolate bars (including Snickers, and Mars bars) became popular at US state fairs, although they had been a local speciality in some fish and chips shops in Scotland since at least the late-1980s^[11] despite containing an estimated 440 calories (1,800 J) per bar when prepared this way.^[12]

In 2006, the UK Food Commission highlighted celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson's "Snickers pie",^[13] which contained five Snickers bars among other ingredients, suggesting it was one of the unhealthiest desserts ever; one slice providing "over 1,250 calories (5,200 J) from sugar and fat alone", more than half a day's requirement for an average adult. The pie had featured on his BBC Saturday programme some two years earlier and the chef described it as an occasional treat only.^[14]

Variations

• 1970: Snickers Munch
• 1989: Snickers Ice Cream bar
• 1996: Snickers Ice Cream cone
• 2001: Snickers Cruncher bar (rebranded Snickers Munch in some markets, still sold as "Cruncher" in Germany, Egypt, Poland, Latvia, Austria, Slovakia, Israel, and Sweden)
• 2002: Snickers Almond bar
• 2002: Cookies & Snickers
• 2004: Snickers Marathon energy bars
• 2006: Snickers Duo
• 2006: Snickers Xtreme (5 grams (0.18 oz) of protein per serving, lack of nougat)
• 2007: Snickers Dark (dark chocolate)
• 2008: Snickers Charged (limited edition, contains caffeine, taurine and B vitamins)^[15]
• 2008: Snickers The Lot (Crispy pieces in a thick cream, caramel, sprinkled with a large amount of nuts, covered in chocolate (Australia and New Zealand)

Others include:

• Snickers fun size (also called minis)
• Snickers Flapjack
• Peanut Butter Snickers
• Snickers Gold
• Snickers Cake
• Snickers Ice Cream (brownies, bars, tubs, and cones)
• Snickers Nut N Butter Crunch
• Snickers Crazy Peanuts (limited edition, sold in Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia)
• Snickers Hard (limited edition, sold in Armenia, Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia)
• Snickers 220 V (limited edition, contains guarana and L-carnitine, sold in 2007 in Slovakia and Poland)
• Snickers P'opables
• Snickers Hazelnut (Australia, Poland, Duo bar)
• Snickers Maximus (limited edition, extra chewy caramel, no nougat, sold in New Zealand only)
• Snickers miniatures in Celebrations
• Snickers Maple (limited edition, sold in Canada only)
• Snickers with Green Filling (limited edition, sold as a tie-in with the movie Shrek the Third.
• Snickers Adventure Bar (limited edition, sold as Indiana Jones promotion, chocolate, nuts, spice, and coconut flavor)
• Snickers Rockin' Nut Road (limited edition, sold as Rocky Nut Road in Canada, contains almonds, caramel, marshmallow flavored nougat, dark chocolate)
• Snickers Chocolate Spread

Advertising

Super Bowl XLI commercial

On February 4, 2007, during Super Bowl XLI, Snickers commercials aired which resulted in complaints by gay and lesbian groups against the maker of the candy bar, Masterfoods USA of Hackettstown, New Jersey, a division of Mars, Incorporated. The commercial, which had four alternate endings,^{[citation needed]} showed a pair of auto mechanics accidentally touching lips while sharing a Snickers bar. Realizing that they "accidentally kissed", they, in three of the four versions, "do something manly" (mostly in the form of injury, including tearing out chest hair, striking each other with a very large pipe wrench, and drinking motor oil and windshield washer fluid). In the fourth version, a third mechanic shows up and asks if there is "room for three in this Love Boat".

The website for the commercials, since taken down, also featured Super Bowl players viewing the commercials and reacting with disgust to the "kiss".^{[citation needed]} The website said that the commercials would be aired during the upcoming Daytona 500.^{[citation needed]} Complaints were lodged against Masterfoods that the ads were homophobic. Human Rights Campaign president Joe Solmonese is quoted as saying

"This type of jeering from professional sports figures at the sight of two men kissing fuels the kind of anti-gay bullying that haunts countless gay and lesbian school children on playgrounds all across the country."^[16]

Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) president Neil Giuliano said "That Snickers, Mars and the NFL would promote and endorse this kind of prejudice is simply inexcusable." Masterfoods has since pulled the ads and the website.^[17][18]

Mr T

In 2008, a UK television commercial in which Mr T fires Snickers bars at a racewalker for being a "disgrace to the man race" was pulled after complaints from a US pressure group that the advertisement was homophobic.^[19] The advert originally began airing mid-2007.

NASCAR

In NASCAR racing, Snickers (and the rest of the Mars affiliated brands) sponsor Kyle Busch's #18 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing. Prior to that the brand served as a primary sponsor for Ricky Rudd's #88 Robert Yates Racing Ford as well as an associate sponsor for the team's #38 car driven first by Elliott Sadler and then by David Gilliland, and an associate sponsor for the MB2 Motorsports #36 Pontiac driven by Derrike Cope, Ernie Irvan, Ken Schrader, and others.

See also

Food portal

• Snickers salad

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Snickers

• Snickers facts
• Snickers official homepage
• The UK campaign to rename the bar back to Marathon
• Snickers Australia Official Homepage
• Snickers Latinamerica Official Homepage
• 2008 Controversial Snickers Mr T Speedwalker TV Commercial
• The Snickers Song 2006 Snickers TV Commercial
• Video Clip of the Controversial Commercial "Snickers Kiss" 2007 Snickers Super Bowl TV commercial
• UK Snickers Advert featuring Mr T 2007 Snickers UK TV Advert.