Who can resist a handful of sweet jelly beans on National Jelly Bean Day? Well on April 22nd each year, you really don’t have to resist at all. As a celebration, enjoying them is a must!
- 1800s – The first jelly bean was created by an unknown American candy maker in the 1800s.
- 1861 – An 1861 advertisement recommended sending jelly beans to soldiers fighting in the Civil War.
- 1861 – While candies made similarly existed before the jelly bean, Boston confectioner William Schrafft made them popular during the Civil War. With their firm exterior, jelly beans were the first candies sold by the pound. Schrafft encouraged his customers to send them to Union soldiers.
- 1920 – F. Scott Fitzgerald pens the short story “The Jelly-Bean” about an aimless loafer named Jim Powell.
- 1930s – Jelly beans were originally enjoyed as a Christmas-time treat. It took until the 1930s before jelly beans’ resemblance to eggs was noticed, and then they became a fixture in Easter baskets. However, the Yuletide association continues—after Easter, Christmas is still the second most popular time of year to eat them.
- 1930s – In the 1930s, jelly beans became closely associated with the Easter holiday thanks to their egg-like shape. However, confectioners make jelly beans available all year long now.
- 1976 – The original eight flavors of Jelly Belly beans introduced in 1976 were Very Cherry, Root Beer, Cream Soda, Tangerine, Green Apple, Lemon, Licorice and Grape.
- 1981 – The 40th President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, enjoyed jelly beans so much that they were present at his inauguration. He started eating them when he quit smoking years before. The Herman Goelitz Candy Company supplied red, white and blue jelly beans for the 1980 event. At the time, the company didn’t produce blue jelly beans. They created a blueberry jelly bean for the first time, especially for the inauguration.
- 1983 – Jelly Belly beans were the first jelly beans in outer space when President Reagan sent them on the 1983 flight of the space shuttle Challenger.
- 1998 – Very Cherry remained the most popular flavor of Jelly Belly beans for two decades until 1998 when Buttered Popcorn moved into first place.
- 2000s – The success of the “Harry Potter” movies inspires the production of bizarre flavors of jelly beans.
- 2003 – In 2003 Very Cherry moved back into top position by a mere 8 million beans.
- 2018 – There were 15 billion Jelly Belly jelly beans eaten.
- Each year in the U.S., there are 16 billion jelly beans manufactured just for Easter. This is enough to circle the Earth more than 5 times if they were laid end to end.
- In the early 20th century, a “jelly bean” was slang for a man of style and no substance.
- They were the first candy to be sold by weight rather than by piece.
- It takes 7 to 14 days to make a single Jelly Belly jelly bean.
- They were originally sold by color and people would buy a bag of red or a bag of green.
- Each year in the U.S., there are 16 billion jelly beans manufactured just for Easter. This is enough to circle the Earth more than 3 times if they were laid end to end.
- Most jelly bean assortments include eight flavors.
- According to Jelly Belly, here are the favorite tastes across the globe.
- For North and South America: very cherry;
- Asia, lemon-lime;
- Australia: bubble gum;
- Europe: tutti-fruitti,
- The Middle East, berry blue.
- Within America, you can also find generational preferences. While adults and kids both love cherry, making it the No. 1 most popular flavor, their tastes diverge beyond that. Grown-ups go for buttered popcorn, coconut, juicy pear, licorice, and strawberry daiquiri; kids opt for berry blue, green apple, raspberry, sour apple, and watermelon.
- One jelly bean contains about 4 calories.
- Jelly Belly can make 1,680 Jelly Belly beans per second.
- Beetle poop is the secret ingredient that makes jelly beans shiny. The FDA calls this “shellac” and not beetle dump for some strange reason. Shellac is actually found in a lot more candy that just jelly beans like Hershey’s, Milk Duds, Junior Mints, Godiva Chocolate, and the candy everyone loves to hate: candy corn.
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