Also I have just taken delivery of some Pretzel M&M’s !!

The new warehouse is really taking shape now and the shop will be open as soon as I can get it done. Having said that don’t let that stop you paying me a visit if you are in the area.

New address is Alexandria Court, Alexandria Drive, Off Lord Sheldon Way, Ashton Under Lyne, Lancashire OL7 0QN

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.

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 More pics to come, will keep you posted…

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

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

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 !

Our lovely fans at Fluid Creativity posted this picture on Flickr this morning.

Get those cameras and phones out and get posting pictures of how much you love American Soda too. Post them on your blogs, Flickr, Yfrog, Twitpic or any other site we can see your pictures. Send us the link in the comments section below or post on our facebook wall or Tweet it to us @AmericanSoda!

We will no doubt be retweeting a few of our favourites so if it’s more followers you’re after, make the pictures good!  We will post our favourites on the blog next week. Can’t wait to see what you guys come up with!

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

We were going to do a huge vote but due to a small amount of nominations we feel there are 5 clear winners.

Sorry to Andrew Watson and Mark Hurst for not including you but as you nominated yourselves we felt this wouldn’t be fair on everyone else, however of course we will count your votes for Melaina and I am I sure she will be very grateful!

Without further ado here are our final winners for a crate of Mountain Dew:

John Hutchings comment from Facebook. “I love Mountain Dew because it brings me back to when I was in sitting outside the log cabin in Minnesota, watching the sunset disappear under the cleanest lake in America, sipping on a can of Mountain Dew and thinking life couldn’t get much better ”  with 1 nomination

“I love Mountain Dew because it’s tongue tingling tasty – c’mon, you know it’s true!” from Twitter’s Beverley aka @bev_metallica with 1 nomination

Anthony Collas on Facebook: “I love mountain dew because everything else is dish water compared to this liquid paradise” with 3 nominations

“I Love Mountain Dew because it helps give us gamers the edge to win.”  Despite Martin Brown winning the first round with 5 nominations he had a lot of support from gamers who thought he was spot on! Why not share a few cans next time your gaming!

And finally @melaina25: “@americansoda I love Diet Mt. Dew because it’s a little bit of sunshine 3,000 miles away from home!”
With a huge 12 votes you guys really did love her reason and yes Melinda can have diet if we have some in stock! Congratulations on the new arrival and we hope this keeps your energy up and thanks for the picture!

Please email me at dave@americansoda.co.uk to claim your prize!