Archive for 2010

Just thought I would give you some info on M&M’s which I have just finished researching the history of.

M&M candies were originally created back in 1941, when Mars Company founder Forrest Mars, Sr. got the idea from seeing the chocolate pellets that soldiers would while fighting in the Spanish Civil War.  Mr. Mars filed for a patent for his own take on chocolate candies and put them into production in 1941.  Due to rations that were put into place for chocolate at the time, so Mars joined up with Hershey, which was in control of the rationed product.  They were originally sold in tubes made of cardboard and came in various colours, including violet, red, yellow, green and brown.  Over the years, new varieties have been added to the line-up which include Peanut M&M’s and M&M Peanut Butter candies.

Even though director Steven Spielberg initially approached Mars about using M&M’s in his film E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, when they declined, he went to Hershey and asked about Hershey Kisses instead.  They said no to one of their leading chocolate creations, but did let him use Reese’s Pieces for product placement instead, which increased sales by a whopping 65% when the film came out.  In 1990, the Mars Company released their own peanut butter filled creation with M&M Peanut Butter candies.

One of the original colours, violet, was replaced early on by tan.  In 1995, the Mars Company let customers decide what new colour would replace tan.  They got to choose from purple, pink and blue, with blue ending up as tan’s replacement.  Around the same time the blue M&M came about, the company changed up their commercial strategy, replacing traditionally animated characters with computer generated mascots.  Each of their different varieties of M&M candies was represented by a CG character in their commercials.  Red was a traditional milk chocolate M&M.  Yellow represented the bigger peanut M&M’s.  Green, the only female character of the group, represented the M&M Peanut Butter candies, as well as dark chocolate and mint.  Blue represented the almond M&M’s and Orange represented the now defunct Crispy M&M’s.

Newer versions of the candy include things like M&M’s Minis, which came about in 1996.  These miniature candies were much smaller and thus came a tube rather than a bag.  Crispy M&M’s were released in 1999, which had the traditional milk chocolate coating, but had a rice centre.  This type was dropped 2005 in the US, but can be found in some places in Europe and Asia.  The traditional milk chocolate and peanut M&M’s, as well as M&M Peanut Butter candies still exist and continue to be best sellers.

Well its been a frantic few weeks trying to keep eveything going but we are almost settled into our new home, just thought I’d post some pictures so you can see the progress so far…

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 More pics to come, will keep you posted…

Just to let you folk’s know we will be moving in June to a BRAND NEW warehouse in June..

Our new address is
American Soda
Unit 8
Alexandria Court
Alexandria Drive
Off Lord Sheldon Way(opposite Screwfix)
Ashton Under Lyne
OL7  0QN

Tel 0161 3700 955

Sending emails that actually get read is getting harder and harder what with spam filters and free email accounts getting full and as a result many of you are no longer recieving the great offers and promotions that I run.

I have created a toolbar that you can install in seconds and it allows me to send out alerts to you to make you aware of any new products, offers or promotions that are going on.

For those who download the toolbar between now and Wednesday 21st April I will send out an alert at 6pm on Wednesday that will have a discount code for you to use against your next purchase.

When you download the AmericanSoda Toolbar it will give you the option to customise it and add helpful apps to it.

I hope you download the toolbar and help me stay in touch with you.

Dave
www.americansoda.co.uk

Some more American goodies just in…

Betty Crocker Au Gratin

M&M Coconut

Betty Crocker Cup Cake Icing

Bone Suckin Sauces

Vlasic products

Hope you enjoy them as much as I do !

I’ve had dozens of requests to put up a list of all the new products in one place..so here we go !!

Swiss Miss Marshmallow Lovers Pack

Swiss Miss Dark Chocolate Sensation

Smuckers Natural Creamy Peanut Butter

Skippy Creamy Peanut Butter

Skippy Natural Super Chunk Peanut Butter

Smuckers Blueberry Preserve

Kool Aid Grape Tub

Kool Aid Tropical Punch Tub

TANG Orange Tub

Fanta Grape Soda

Variety of Crystal Light mixes

Variety of new Jell-O

Kool Aid Jammers

Variety of Life Saver bags

Red Velvet Cake Mix

Shake n Bake Italian

Bisquick Shake n Pour 300g Buttermilk Pancake mix

Phew !! thats the lot

Hope you enjoy them.

Dave

A huge thank you for all those who entered the “I love Mountain Dew…..” competition, we have had an over-whelming response and some great reasons. So many of you had such great memories of being back home in the States and having great holidays in America, it was lovely to hear about them.

We chose our five favourites for a number of different reasons.

Twitter: @keeperbinns: @AmericanSoda i love mountain dew because my mrs is giving birth in 3 weeks and she is eating and drinking me out of house & home #IloveDew We know how much he is going to need the Mountain Dew to give him the energy in the first few weeks after the new arrival.

Twitter: @Stevensegg: @AmericanSoda I love Mountain Dew b/c it looks like ectoplasm, giving me the chance pretend I’m a Ghostbuster.Sad, but oh so true #ilovedew This was such a cool geeky answer and we loved it!

Facebook: Martin Brown I Love Mountain Dew because it helps give us gamers the edge to win. We liked Martins comment because it was simple and showed Mountain Dew gave gamers with energy to win, he spoke for a whole group of people not just himself.

Twitter: @FredThomasWDW: @americansoda I love Mountain Dew because It reminds me of the best times in my life spent with a mouse #ilovedew It was such an original way to refer to Micky Mouse and Disney we felt we should give him a crate.

Facebook: Ben Moore I love mountain dew so much despite it making my head explode with its sheer awesomeness. This is why i have blanked out my display picture to hide the massive head explosion that was caused. We loved this because he even changed his profile picture to convey his love of Mountain Dew.

We wanted to give a shout out to those who went to loads of effort with poems and songs; we loved Joe Connor’s song for Mountain Dew;

I hear that familiar swish and I start to drool
Keep a couple cans in my locker at school
Yeah, 7-up’s gettin’ old,
Coke just leaves me cold…
There’s just one flavor good enough for me, yeah me!… See more
Don’t gimme no cruddy Kool-Aid
I know what I need,

Baby:
I Love Mountain Dew
so won’t you go and buy a six-pack, baby?
I love Mountain Dew
so have another 2-liter with me.

They tell me Caffeine Junkies are all the same,
all the fast-food places know my name.
When their supply is gone
then I’ll be movin’ on…
But I’ll be back on Monday afternoon–you’ll see!
They’ve got a truckload comin’ in for me, all for me

I’m singin:
I love Mountain Dew
so won’t you go and buy me a six-pack, baby?
I love Mountain Dew
so have another 2-liter with me!

Since some of you didn’t agree with our choices we will be giving 5 more crates of Mountain Dew away but this time you guys get to choose. Take a look at some of the responses we had on facebook and twitter. Write below which reasons were your favourite and why. We can all have a vote later in the week as to which ones you think should win a crate of Mountain Dew.