Fork over your personal information and the Mars chocolate company will snail mail you a free coupon for one full-sized Mars candy bar in 6 weeks. We mentioned this in Morning Deals in May, it’s still going on, and will continue on Fridays through September. They’re calling it the “Real Chocolate Relief Act,” a tie-in to two different news stories: 1) Economic bailout plans and 2) Some corner-cutting candymakers not using 100% cocoa butter and putting more oil inside – a basterdization known as “mocklate.”
mars
By 5.8.09
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Mars didn’t really think through their “free chocolate” offer and the server stampede it would inevitably cause. If you had rotten luck this morning but still insist on getting a free candy bar coupon via snail mail in six weeks, try the site now; I just did and was able to get a coupon without any delay (less than 2 minutes total time on the site). [realchocolate.com]
Woman Finds Tiny Mammal Vertebra In Peanut M&M
By 3.5.09
A woman in Atlanta bit into a blue peanut M&M and discovered a tiny, blackened bone, probably from a nut obsessed animal who crept into the M&M to eat the peanut, then died of remorse. A Mars rep told the customer it was probably just a peanut twig. Whatever; by our estimations, this animal is most likely smaller than a peanut M&M, but has a comically wide and very short neck. Hmm, maybe we should instead ask an expert to deduce where this bone came from, which is what the customer did.
Avoid Eating Stale Candy By Learning The Secret Candy Codes
By 4.9.08
Reader Leo writes in with some helpful information that will allow you to avoid stale candy:
I work at a small-volume store in the midwest, and the other day my supervisor asked us to check all of the candy in the checkout lanes to see if it had expired. M&M Mars and Hershey brand candy both had different, indecipherable codes on the back which tell the expiration date. After calling the 1-800 number and finding out what the codes meant, we discovered that most of our candy stock was expired by a year or more. We even found candy that went bad from 2004. I figured I should share the codes, so people won’t buy expired candy, because it’s out there.
By 1.6.08
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The Justice Department is investigating price fixing in the chocolate industry. Mars, Nestle, and Cadbury were contacted after a preliminary analysis showed that the 100 Grand bar actually cost far less than advertised. [Slashfood]
Mars Breaks Rank, Promises Consumers It Will Keep Using Real Chocolate
By 9.19.07
On Monday, Mars Snackfoods US—makers of “pokin’ at you pokin’ at you” Snickers bars, M&Ms, and other popular office meal replacement systems—announced that it would not seek FDA permission to replace its cocoa butter with cheaper vegetable oil, which is what the rest of the industry is lobbying for. Okay, first of all, yech, just… vegetable oil? But second of all, yay for Mars for drawing a line somewhere on poor product quality.
