Mr. Forrest Mars, traveling in Spain during the Spanish civil war (1936–1937), noticed that soldiers ate pieces of chocolate covered with a crisp sugar coating—the chocolate did not melt! He (son of founder of the Mars candy company) and partner Bruce Murrie (son of the president of Hershey chocolate company) opened a factory in England to produce chocolate candies coated with a hard sugar shell. Another purported influence on the development of M&M’s is Smarties—an English candy launched in 1937 by the Rowntree company: another sugar-coated chocolate confection. Forrest Mars and R. William Murrie combined their last names to create M&M candies. Their company eventually merged with Mars Inc. M&M chocolate candies started production in 1940. The original colors were red, yellow, green, orange, brown, and violet. The candies were sold in a brown bag; peanut M&M’s were launched in 1954. They came in a bright yellow bag.
