Mounds (candy)

Last updated
Mounds
Mounds brand logo.png
Candy-Mounds-Broken.jpg
Product typeCoconut candy bar
Owner The Hershey Company
Country U.S.
Introduced1920;101 years ago (1920)
Related brands Almond Joy
MarketsUnited States
Previous owners
Website hersheyland.com/mounds

Mounds is a candy bar made by The Hershey Company, consisting of shredded, sweetened coconut coated in dark chocolate. The company also produces Almond Joy bars, in which the coconut is topped by whole almonds and the coating is milk chocolate. The two products share common packaging and logo design, but Mounds uses a red color scheme while Almond Joy uses a blue one.

Contents

History

Originally invented by candy maker Vincent Nitido of West Haven, Connecticut, Mounds was created in 1920 as a single piece for 5 cents. [1] In 1929, the Peter Paul Candy Manufacturing Company purchased the line and began production. The format changed to two pieces that still sold for 5 cents, with the price rising to 10 cents after World War II. [2] Mounds was made in milk chocolate as well.

During World War II, Peter Paul was faced with severe shortages of sugar and coconut which had been shipped from the Philippines before war broke out. The company instead began sourcing coconut from the Caribbean using its own fleet of small vessels for transportation of coconut supplies to the United States. Nicknamed the "Mounds Flea Fleet", these seven ships were small enough to avoid detailed scrutiny by German naval war vessels operating in the Caribbean and yet carried sufficient supply of coconut to keep Peter Paul in operation during the war. [3] Rather than sacrifice quality, the company discontinued some of its lesser selling brands and concentrated production on the Mounds candy bar. Over the years, Peter Paul added several products to its line, including the Almond Joy candy bar (1946) and York Peppermint Patties (1940). Cadbury and Peter Paul merged in 1978, and Hershey Foods purchased the company's U.S. operations in 1988. [4] [5]

Mounds, Almond Joy and other Peter Paul confections, were manufactured in Naugatuck, CT from the early 1920's. In 1950, Peter Paul Candy Manufacturing Company built a larger plant in Naugatuck to produce its confections. [6] Following its acquisition of Mounds and Almond Joy in 1988, The Hershey Company continued to manufacture Mounds and Almond Joy at the Peter Paul plant, before moving the manufacturing operation to a more modern plant in Stuarts Draft, VA in 2007. At the time of the move, the 250,000 square foot Naugatuck plant was operating at 40% capacity. [7]

Product variations

A limited-edition Mounds Island Orange candy bar was introduced in 2006 with orange-colored and orange-flavored coconut but didn't last long. [8]

Advertising and promotion

Mounds' original slogan, "Indescribably Delicious", was created when Mounds ran a contest to come up with the best two words to sell the candy. Leon Weiss, who came up with the slogan, won $10. [9] Peter Paul, Inc. filed a trademark application for the phrase on February 20, 1964, claiming a date of first use on June 15, 1956. The trademark registration date was August 3, 1965. [10] Mounds continues to use the slogan in advertising and on the wrapper.

Mounds uses a packaging and logo design similar to its sister product, with Almond Joy's blue replaced by red, and the two candies are often advertised together. The candy's 1970s ad campaign used a jingle, "Sometimes you feel like a nut / sometimes you don't / Almond Joy's got nuts / Mounds don't", written by Leon Carr. [11]

In the 1985 film Back to the Future , Mounds is in exhibition for sale at the counter's desk in the 1955 fountain parlor.

In Family Guy , Joe Swanson's favorite candy bar is the Mounds bar. In the episode "Finders Keepers", Joe states that he has eaten them "two or three times a day for the last 25 years".[ citation needed ]

Mounds is mentioned in Philip Roth's debut novel, Goodbye, Columbus . The main character's aunt and uncle are described as "sharing a Mounds Bar in the cindery darkness of their alley". [12]

In a 2015 opening monologue on NBC's television show Saturday Night Live , comedian Louis C.K. compared his love for Mounds bars with a child molester's love for molesting children. [13]

See also

Related Research Articles

The Hershey Company American food company

The Hershey Company, commonly known as Hershey's, is an American multinational company and one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in the world. It also manufactures baked products, such as cookies and cakes, and sells beverages like milkshakes, and many more that are produced globally. Its headquarters are in Hershey, Pennsylvania, which is also home to Hersheypark and Hershey's Chocolate World. It was founded by Milton S. Hershey in 1894 as the Hershey Chocolate Company, a subsidiary of his Lancaster Caramel Company. The Hershey Trust Company owns a minority stake but retains a majority of the voting power within the company.

The Lancaster Caramel Company of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was founded by Milton S. Hershey in 1886. It was Hershey's first successful candy company and helped him build a reputation.

Heath bar Toffee candy bar from The Hershey Company

The Heath bar is a candy bar made of toffee, almonds, and milk chocolate. It was originally marketed by L. S. Heath beginning in 1914 and subsequently by Leaf Inc. and, since 1996, by Hershey.

Kit Kat Chocolate bar

Kit Kat is a chocolate-covered wafer bar confection created by Rowntree's of York, United Kingdom, and is now produced globally by Nestlé, except in the United States, where it is made under license by the H. B. Reese Candy Company, a division of the Hershey Company.

Bounty (chocolate bar)

Bounty is a chocolate bar manufactured by Mars, Incorporated. The chocolate bar consists of a coconut flavoured filling coated with milk or dark chocolate. It was introduced in 1951 in the United Kingdom and Canada, initially only coated with milk chocolate.

Reeses Pieces

Reese's Pieces are a peanut butter candy manufactured by The Hershey Company; they are oblate spheroid in shape and covered in candy shells that are colored yellow, orange, or brown. They can be purchased in plastic packets, cardboard boxes, or cup-shaped travel containers. Reese's was originally invented by H.B. Reese, owner of The H.B. Reese Candy Company. The H.B. Reese Candy Company was merged with The Hershey Company in 1963.

Hersheys Kisses Chocolate candy brand manufactured by the Hershey Company.

Hershey's Kisses is a brand of chocolate first produced by the Hershey Company in 1907. The bite-sized pieces of chocolate have a distinctive conical shape, sometimes described as flat-bottomed teardrops. Hershey's Kisses chocolates are wrapped in squares of lightweight aluminum foil. A narrow strip of paper sticks out from the top of each Hershey's Kiss wrapper. Originally designed as a flag for the "Hershey's" brand, the printed paper plumes were added to the Kisses product wrapper in 1921 in order to distinguish the Hershey's Kiss from its competitors who offered similar products.

Reeses Peanut Butter Cups American candy

Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are an American candy consisting of a chocolate cup filled with peanut butter, marketed by The Hershey Company. They were created on November 15, 1928, by H. B. Reese, a former dairy farmer and shipping foreman for Milton S. Hershey. Reese left his job with Hershey to start his own candy business. Reese's generates more than $2 billion in annual sales for The Hershey Company, and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are number one on the list of top-selling candy brands.

Almond Joy

Almond Joy is a candy bar manufactured by Hershey's, consisting of whole almonds and sweetened, shredded coconut covered in milk chocolate. The company also produces Mounds, a similar confection that omits the almonds and is coated in dark chocolate. The two bars have the same packaging and logo design, but Almond Joy has a blue color scheme while Mounds uses red.

The 5th Avenue is a candy bar introduced in 1936, consisting of peanut butter crunch layers enrobed in chocolate. It is produced and marketed by The Hershey Company.

Idaho Spud Candy bar made in Idaho

The Idaho Spud is a candy bar made by the Idaho Candy Company. It has been produced since 1918 and is distributed primarily throughout the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The wrapper of the product bears the slogan "The Candy Bar That Makes Idaho Famous." The bar was invented by Thomas "T.O." Smith, who founded the Idaho Candy Company in 1901.

Hershey bar American chocolate candy bar

The Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bar is a flagship chocolate bar manufactured by The Hershey Company. Hershey refers to it as "The Great American Chocolate Bar". The Hershey Milk Chocolate Bar was first sold in 1900.

H. B. Reese American businessman and inventor

Harry Burnett "H. B." Reese was an American inventor and businessman known for creating the No. 1 selling candy brand in the United States, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and founding the H.B. Reese Candy Company. In 2009, he was posthumously inducted into the Candy Hall of Fame.

Peter Paul Halajian was a candy manufacturer in the New Haven, Connecticut area in the early 20th century. Born Peter Halajian in Armenia, he immigrated to the U.S. in 1890 and worked in a rubber factory, opening a candy shop on February 1, 1895, in Naugatuck, Connecticut, and changing his surname to the English equivalent Paul. After selling chocolate bars to the U.S. Army for use by soldiers in World War I, who demanded them when they came home, he teamed with five other Armenian investors to form the Peter Paul Candy Manufacturing Company on Webster Street in New Haven in 1919 with $6,000. The company at first sold various brands of candies, including the Mounds bar, but following sugar and coconut shortages in World War II, they dropped most brands and concentrated on the Mounds bar, with the U.S. military purchasing as much as 80% of their output by 1944, packing 5 million candy bars monthly into combat rations. The Almond Joy bar was introduced in 1946. In 1978 Peter Paul merged with Cadbury-Schweppes.

The Peter Paul Candy Manufacturing Company is a candy-making division within the Hershey Company.

Pearsons Candy Company American chocolate and confectionery manufacturer

Pearson's Candy Company is an American chocolate and confectionery manufacturer headquartered in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Founded as a confectionery distribution firm in 1909, the company began to manufacture its own products in 1912. Originally a family-owned company, Pearson's experienced changes in ownership, acquisitions and product alterations in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, before its most recent sale in November 2018 to Spell Capital, a Minneapolis private equity firm.

Coconut candy

Coconut candy refer to various candies made with coconut or coconut flavorings.

The Hollywood Candy Company, or Hollywood Brands, was an American confectionery company formed in Hollywood, Carver County, Minnesota, in 1912 by Frank Martoccio.

References

  1. ↑ "West Haven honors late Mounds candy bar creator". New Haven Register. Apr 1, 2020.
  2. ↑ Lisa Flaherty. "A Few Questions about Almond Joy, Mounds & Peter Paul". WASAW. Retrieved March 23, 2018.
  3. ↑ "Historical society looking for stolen replica". Jan 10, 2014.
  4. ↑ "America's 10 Favorite Chocolate Candies". The Daily Meal. 2015-04-21. Retrieved 2018-07-07.
  5. ↑ "We compared the UK's favorite chocolate to the version that's sold in the US — and we were surprised by what we found". Business Insider. Retrieved 2018-07-07.
  6. ↑ "A Place in Naugatuck History: Peter Paul's Legend". Naugatuck, CT Patch. Sep 16, 2011.
  7. ↑ Writer, JANICE PODSADA; Courant Staff. "A NOT-SO-SWEET ENDING IN NAUGATUCK". courant.com.
  8. ↑ "Mounds Island Orange - Candy Blog". www.candyblog.net.
  9. ↑ Popik, Barry. "Barry Popik". www.barrypopik.com.
  10. ↑ "INDESCRIBABLY DELICIOUS - Peter Paul, Inc. Trademark Registration". USPTO.report.
  11. ↑ "TeeVee Toons - The Commercials Vol. 1 Soundtrack CD". 1989. Retrieved March 23, 2018.
  12. ↑ Royal, Derek Parker, ed. (2005). Philip Roth: New Perspectives on an American Author. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN   9780275983635 – via Google Books.
  13. ↑ Carly Mallenbaum (May 17, 2015). "Louis C.K. jokes about child molesters on 'SNL,' things get uncomfortable". USA TODAY.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.