The new M&M's will have a soft, chewy caramel centre. © Mars
Chocolate brand M&M’s will launch the first soft-filled variant in its 75-year history, it has been revealed.
The new caramel M&M’s feature soft, chewy caramel covered in milk chocolate and encased in a colourful shell. It will join the three existing iterations of M&M’s candies: milk and dark chocolate, peanut, and crispy pretzel.
According to CNNMoney, parent company Mars will use the launch to tap into the $2.2 billion caramel business.
Mars has previously released versions of M&M’s with flavoured shells but has never before launched a variety with a soft centre.
Hank Izzo, vice president of research and development for Mars, told CNNMoney: “Caramel is extremely trendy. It’s a $2.2 billion flavuor segment and the fastest growing segment in food right now. We want to be part of this category.”
“After years of development, M&M’s now has the proprietary technology to enter the soft and chewy category partition with the launch of M&M’s caramel chocolate candies,” he was quoted as saying by Fortune. “Based on testing, consumers love the concept of M&M’s Caramel, scoring higher than any M&M’S Brand variant ever.”
Each M&M sweet, which Mars calls ‘lentils’, are slightly larger than their regular counterparts – but it was the soft filling that presented the company with the biggest obstacle.
Izzo continued: “It was a big technological challenge for us. We never before had a M&M lentil with a true soft centre, so we had to figure out how to not make the chocolate too sticky or too soft that it could collapse.”
Mars is currently in the process of perfecting the manufacturing set up for caramel M&M’s, and expects to be able to bring the candies to market in the US by May.
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