Just Born Candy New Lineup

Yesterday marked the beginning of the All Candy Expo being held in Chicago. As is normally this case, this is a time when the candy makers unveil their new lineups of candy. One of the recent releases was from the Just Born company of candy. Just Born released the following information:

• New MIKE AND IKE Lemonade Blends
  
  This will be a five flavor assortment. Along with this they will donate a minimum of $100,000 each year for the next three years to Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF).


• PEEPS - Sugar-Free Pumpkins, the sugar-free Peeps at Easter must have been popular because now they are releasing some for Halloween.


• PEEPS Joy Marshmallows - for the Christmas season you will be able to buy PEEPS in the shape of the letters J, O, and Y so you can spell Joy.


• Next Valentines PEEPS will release a chocolate mousse flavored marshmallow bear.


• Next Easter we get PEEPS chocolate mouse flavored marshmallow bunnies, orange chicks, and green bunnies. Also Just Born will release Hot Tamale Jelly Beans with Cinnamon, Spice, and Licorice as the flavors.

New Tic Tac Flavors

Recently Ferrero has added some new flavors to the tic tac line of candies. I guess you can call these candies. I am not sure whether you would put them in the candy or mint category.

Anyway the new flavors introduced recently were Apple Sour Bold, Berry Sour Bold, Cherry Passion, and Citrus Twist. The Apple Sour and Berry Sour are additions to their Bold line of mints, while the Cherry Passion and the Citrus Twist are additions to the normal line of tic tacs, but adding multiple flavors within one package.

The addition of multiple flavors into one package in genius and reminds me of combining the different flavors of nerds from one box. Hopefully they will continue combining flavors for new combinations. It is kind of like creating Jelly Belly recipes.

I would have to assume with the addition of these new flavors we would push tic tacs into the candy category over the mint category. After all these don't sound like breath mint flavors to me.

Mike and Ike Tropical Typhoon New Flavors

Just Born, inc. is trying to spice up the Mike and Ike line of candies. They are introducing five new flavors for the Tropical Typhoon candy mix. The five new flavors are: Mango, Strawberry Banana, Paradise Punch, Kiwi Banana, and Caribbean Punch. They refer to these groups of flavors as the new island flavors. You have to wonder if they were inspired by a Caribbean movie.

Each flavor is meant to remind you of being in a tropical paradise. These new Tropical Typhoon Island Flavors are another addition to a line of flavors which includes: the Original Fruits, Berry Blast, Jolly Joes, Tangy Twister, and my favorite - Zours. If you are an Mike and Ike fan check out the new Tropical Typhoon mix.

2008 Peeps Celebrity Survey

Each year Peeps does a survey of three separate questions. What male/female celebrity most resembles Peeps and also who is most in need of a Peep. For the second year in a row Will Ferrell won with 27.6 percent of the vote followed by Will Smith and Johnny Depp.

On the female side Ellen DeGeneres won this year after a third place finish last year. She was followed by Reese Witherspoon and Jessica Simpson and Miley Cyrus who tied for third. Jessica Simpson was the winner in 2007.

President Bush won for the third consecutive year for the person who most needs a Peep. He was followed by Hillary Clinton in second and Simon Cowell in third.

Also in the survey we learn more people enjoy their Peeps fresh rather than aged, the most popular way to eat them is head first, the chick is preferred to the bunny, and a smiley face would be the most popular new shape.

Junior Mints Deluxe

Tootsie Roll Industries have come out with a new Junior Mints Deluxe. These are dark chocolate with a creamy milk center. They are similar to like a cadbury creme egg, but with dark chocolate and a mint center. They come in 6oz boxes with each piece of candy individually wrapped in foil.

These mints are larger than other varieties of Junior Mints. They are shaped more like a chocolate covered cherry and the filling is more like that of a chocolate covered cherry as well. In my opinion there are very few ways you can mess up Dark Chocolate and Mint. They go together so well.

Jones Carbonated Candy

You probably know Jones Soda for their bottles with the unique pictures on them. Well Jones now has carbonated candy as well. Instead of putting pictures on the bottles, each container has a quote on the inside.

These candies combine some of the favorite Jones soda flavors with a carbonated kick to the candy. Think of taking a can of soda and shaking it up and spraying it in your mouth. Well that is what it is like if you eat the whole container at once. One at a time it is like a little bit of soda in your mouth.

Jones Carbonated Candy comes in six different flavors. The flavors are Berry Lemonade, Fufu Berry, Green Apple, Cream Soda, Orange and Cream, and M.F. Grape.

Jones Soda is now coming out with Jones Sour Candy. These will once again feature peoples faces on the boxes just like the soda does. So take your best sour face picture and upload it to see if you get picked for a box of Jones Sour Candy.

3 Musketeers - Mint

3 Musketeers has long been one of my favorite candy bars. No they have gone and improved upon it by making a mint version with dark chocolate. Now don't misunderstand me, I still love the original 3 Musketeers bar with it's creamy center and milk chocolate, but sometimes you need a little mint in your life and that is where the 3 Musketeers mint come into play.

One cool thing is on the 3 Musketeers website they have recipes for using the 3 Musketeers Mint candy bars. Doesn't a nice 3 Musketeer Mint Cream Puff sound delicious right now. Or maybe you would prefer the 3 Musketeer Mint Cheesecake. Either way these are some good candy bars.

Baskin Robbins Candy Bar Madness

Baskin Robbins is teaming up with Hersheys to provide Candy Bar Madness ice cream confections. The possible choices include sundaes, shakes, ice cream, and cakes. What can be better than combining ice cream and candies.

Flavor combinations include:

• Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Sundae, Shake, Ice Cream, or Pie


• York Peppermint Pattie Sunday, Shake, or Ice Cream


• Heath Sundae, Shake, Cappuccino Blast, or Ice Cream


• Kissables Cake


• Candy Crazy Cake

Go check out your local Baskin Robbins store for their entire collection of ice cream.

Hershey Bliss

Recently Hershey has been battling with higher chocolate prices and less sales. I am sure that Valentine's Day helped to relieve some of the pressure. Hershey has announced they are coming out with a new chocolate candy confection called "Bliss".

Bliss is one of Hershey's first major attempts at the premium chocolate category. They have been lacking any type of premium chocolate, and hope this will help get them some market share in the industry.

Bliss is a piece of chocolate with a rounded top. They will be priced somewhere in the $3 - $4 dollar range for a bag of 36. The chocolates will come in 3 varieties to begin, Milk Chocolate, Dark Chocolate, and Milk Chocolate with a melt-away center.

Happy Valentines Day

In honor of Valentine's Day today we are going to show some candy statistics in relation to Valentine's Day

• It is estimated Americans spend 1 Billion dollars on candy for Valentines Day.
• There are around 1000 factories in the U.S. which produce chocolate confections
• During the year 75% of chocolate is purchased by women. Around Valentine's Day 75% of chocolate is purchased by men.
• Valentine's day is responsible for about 10% of the annual consumption of chocolate
• Global chocolate sales were estimated at 74 Billion dollars in 2006
• In 2005 the U.S. chocolate consumption per person was 12.3 lbs
• The country with the highest per person chocolate consumption in 2005 was Germany with 24.5 lbs

Anyway, just thought we would share some quick statistics this Valentine's day. So go out and enjoy your chocolate today.

New Era Brands Clip 'N Go Candy and Mints

Well, I guess we have had enough chocolate for now and it is time to get back to candy and gum. So today we introduce the New Era Brand Clip 'N Go Candy and Mints. So the idea behind these are you can clip whatever you want like your keys or something to the package of mints, or clip it on your backpack or whatever.

It seems like a good idea the first time you look at it, and it probably is a good idea for some people. Personally I would not be one of those people. Of course I have never really gotten into the mint and gum phenomenon which has been going on.

The mints come in 4 flavors, Peppermint, Spearmint, Cinnamon, and Sour Fruit. The gum also comes in 4 flavors, Peppermint, Wintergreen, Spearmint, and Cinnamon. They are also selling a peppermint flavor in a pink container for breast cancer awareness.

Sees Candies

I feel a little reluctant to include Sees Candies in this list of chocolate makers for Valentines, but since I included Russell Stover, I guess I need to include one of the other mass marketed company as well. This doesn't mean Sees doesn't make good chocolates, they do, it was just not the intent of this section to cover these larger companies.

For Valentines Sees Candies has quite a large variety of possibilities. They have the traditional chocolate heart, chocolates in puppy dog boxes, marshmallow hearts, sour hearts, hot hearts, hand-decorated hearts, and other delicious items for your enjoyment.

Neuchatel Chocolates

Neuchatel Chocolates provide fine swiss chocolate confections. They even include an organic and a sugar free line of products. Of course we are here to look at the chocolate. They specialize in truffles, assorted chocolates, covered fruit, and covered nuts. Of course one of their main products are the Swiss Chips, potato chips covered in chocolate.

For their Valentine's assortments they have the traditional heart chocolate assortment, chocolate covered cherries, or the gift bag assortment.

It seems they really enjoy dipping things in chocolate as well. They have the swiss chips, pretzels, animal crackers, nuts, and fruits as well as the swiss drops. I guess most anything tastes better when it is dipped in chocolate.

Richart Paris Chocolates

Of all the chocolate companies I have research none have made my mouth water quite like Richart Paris Chocolates. It seems there is something very special about these chocolates.

Richart has a nice selection of Valentine's chocolates. You can choose from the Intense Love, Cherish, Ultimate Desire, or Je T'aime Collection. Each of these collections comes with a variety of chocolates, some in the shape of a heart.

You truly need to check out Richart and all of the chocolates they have to offer. They offer a variety of flavors like balsamic, roasted, fruity, floral, citrus, and more.