Trivia # 26 : Tootsie Rolls

Tootsie rolls were named after the daughter of their creator.

The man was Leo Hirshfield. His five year old daughter's nickname was "Tootsie" (her real name was Clara Hirshfield). In creating the Tootsie Roll, Hirshfield was trying to create a chocolate that wouldn't melt easily and eventually came up with the artificial "chocolate" candy, the tootsie roll. This ability to not melt easily and to use artificial ingredients that weren't being rationed during war times proved a huge boon for the company as it eventually began being included in soldier's rations during WWII. The low price of the artificial ingredients also made it a popular treat during the depression, along with the tootsie pop. Today about 64 million tootsie rolls are produced every day along with 20 million tootsie pops.

Trivia # 25 : Snickers

The Snickers candy bar was named after one of the favorite horses of Frank Mars, who created the Snickers candy bar and founded Mars, Inc. The idea for the Snickers bar came from an already existing snack that was made up of nougat, peanut, and caramel. Frank Mars added chocolate, put it in candy form, and started selling it wholesale. The Snickers bar quickly rose to being the world's most popular candy bar and has sustained that to this day. Annual sales of Snickers bar total around two billion dollars with about 15 million Snickers bars produced every day, using about 100 tons of peanuts.

Trivia # 24 : M&M

In 1941, Forrest Mars Sr., of the Mars candy company, struck a deal with Bruce Murrie, son of famed Hershey president William Murrie, to develop a hard shelled candy with chocolate at the center. Mars needed Hershey's chocolate because he anticipated there would be a chocolate shortage resulting from WWII, which turned out to be correct. As such, the deal gave Murrie a 20% stake in the newly developed M&M; this stake was later bought out by Mars when chocolate rationing ended at the end of the war but the name remained M&Ms for "Mars & Murrie".