PEZ—small compressed candy tablets sold in packs of twelve to be dispensed in the patented PEZ dispenser.
Most people don’t know that PEZ marketing has had many quirky turns over the years.
In 1927, Eduard Haas III, a wealthy Austrian entrepreneur, developed a small candy mint he called PEZ. His family had extensive experience manufacturing baking powders and Haas used their expertise to develop a method of compressing sugar, peppermint oil and other ingredients into a solid tablet. Peppermint oil was expensive at the time and the compressing process kept it from evaporating. At first the tablets were round and sold in small tins, but were changed to the current brick-shape so they could be mechanically wrapped and packaged in paper.
Eduard Haas III was described by contemporaries as a health fanatic. He enjoyed sucking peppermints, finding them calming and refreshing. He considered sucking mints a vastly superior habit to smoking tobacco. PEZ was touted as an alternative to smoking, or at least a breath freshener for use after smoking. It was not a children's candy, but an adult product. The product sold fairly well for more than 20 years in Europe.
Then, in 1948, Haas applied for a patent for the novel PEZ dispenser. It made its debut in Austria in 1949, and a U.S. patent for the device was granted in 1952. The new dispenser was shaped like a cigarette lighter, not only a trick to play on smokers asking for a light, but it was hygienic, allowing PEZ users to give the candy to friends without touching it.
In 1952, Eduard Haas introduced PEZ and the PEZ dispenser to the United States. The lighter-shaped original dispensers did not have the trademark heads, which were introduced four years later.
In another twist, in 1955, Pez was recast in the U.S. as a children's candy instead of an adult mint. The flavors of the candy were expanded beyond a range of mints to include numerous fruits. The PEZ company also placed heads on the dispensers. The characters Popeye, a bunny, and a witch were among the first to be introduced.
Beginning in 1986, Pez sales took off. Sales to the children’s market were good, but unremarkable, then, in 1986 a candy nostalgia craze took hold. PEZ hit the height of its American popularity as a retro collectors item along with Black Jack, Bazooka and Beeman’s chewing gum; wax mustaches, wax coke bottles and wax teeth; jujubes; Charleston Chew and 5th Avenue candy bars. As a result in 1986 U.S. candy sales jumped from $9 billion to $11 billion and continued to climb.
Word origin: PEZ is an acronym for “peppermint” in German, pfefferminz. The letters chosen for the acronym were the first, middle and last--PfeffErminZ.
10 Indispensable Facts about PEZ
