Candy Bars and Candy: Expanding Candy Markets

Yet small and large candy enterprises alike enjoyed a great deal of success at the end of the nineteenth century. By this time both adults and children possessed a well-developed sweet tooth. Individually owned businesses thrived because, like comparable enterprises, they limited their operations to a few easily produced candy lines and a local distribution. In some instances, candy became reflective of and identified with regional tastes. For example, although saltwater taffy—made of sugar, corn syrup, water, corn starch, butter, and salt—was a common staple by the 1870s at midwestern fairs, it became most closely linked to the Atlantic City boardwalk beginning in the 1880s, as the quintessential souvenir item from a trip to the Jersey Shore. Similarly, Goo Goo Clusters (1913), the first bars to combine marshmallow, milk chocolate, caramel, and peanuts, became associated with southern culture.