Aug 13, 2015 12:41 PM EDT
SPOTTED ON SHELVES: Pecan Pie M&M’s

These just have an artificial pecan pie flavor. But Mars has M&M's technology that allows them to put nuts and crispy rice into M&M's. Now they're expanding into another pretty standard flavor in the Flavors of Fall repertoire: pecan pie M&Ms have been spotted at Walmart. Not pecan M&Ms, of course, because that would mean figuring out how to integrate a whole new type of nut into the candy-shelled candies.

Flavored M&Ms usually aren't all that interesting, since there isn't much you can do with a palette of milk chocolate and artificial flavorings. The pumpkin spice ones, for example, just had a light cinnamon flavor. M&M's originated in the United States in 1941, and are now sold in as many as 100 countries.

They are produced in different colors, some of which have changed over the years. The candy-coated chocolate concept was inspired by a method used to allow soldiers to carry chocolate without it melting. The company's longest-lasting slogan reflects this: "Melts in your mouth, not in your hand." A traditional milk chocolate M&M weighs about 0.91 grams / 0.032 ounces and has about 4.7 kilocalories (kcal) of food energy (1.7 kcal from fat).

In the 1980s, M&M's were introduced internationally to Australia, Canada, Europe, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, and the United Kingdom. Also in 1986, M&M's launched HOLIDAYS Chocolate Candies for Easter and Christmas, with the Easter candies having bunny, chick, and egg symbols on pastel-colored shells, and the Christmas candies having pine tree, bell, and candle symbols on red and green shells; with the latter also having a special Mint flavor. By 1993, the holiday symbols were replaced with the standard trademark "M".

In 1999, Crispy M&M's were released. They were slightly larger than the milk chocolate variety and also featured a crispy wafer center. They were discontinued in the United States in 2005, and remained available in Europe, and Southeast Asia. On October 2, 2014, it was announced that Crispy M&M's would return to the United States in January 2015. 

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