British youngsters wolf down 307 tubes of Smarties every minute.
Over a billion Kit Kats are made every year in York with lines in 21 other countries.
Japan produces the world’s greatest variety of Kit Kat flavours — more than 80 including soy sauce, vinegar and cucumber.
In the Middle Ages, the wealthy ate “sweets” made from jelly and dried fruit and wafers made from batter.
The Tudors ate gingerbread, sugared almonds and Marzipan - a paste made of almonds and sugar.
As sugar became cheaper during the 19th century boiled sweets were developed. Other favourites of the time included peanut brittle (1890), candy floss (1897) and Liquorice Allsorts (1899)
Modern marshmallows were invented around 1850 and fudge was first made in the USA in the 1880s.
People have chewed gum from trees for centuries but chewing gum was first made commercially in 1848.
Bassett’s launched jelly Babies in 1918 as ‘Peace Babies’ to mark the end of the First World War. Production was suspended during World War II then re-launched in 1953 as ‘Jelly Babies’.
Each Bassett’s Jelly Baby now has an individual name and shape, colour and flavour:Brilliant (red - strawberry), Bubbles (yellow - lemon), Baby Bonny (pink - raspberry), Boofuls (green - lime), Bigheart (purple - blackcurrant) and Bumper (orange).
The pre-war rivalry between Rowntree’s and Cadbury’s inspired Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Roald Dahl was an official Cadbury chocolate taster as a schoolboy.
Rowntree launched Aero as The New Chocolate in 1935, later introducing Peppermint, Orange, Coffee and Lime flavours.
Strawberry and Rum Aero bars were introduced in 1972 but dropped because production was unable to keep up with demand.
A bar of Dairy Milk is sold every two seconds. Enough is sold each year to cover every Premier League and Nationwide league pitch five times over.
The average person in the UK will buy three Cadbury Creme Eggs each year. If you stacked all the Creme Eggs made in a year on top of each other, it would be 10 times higher than Mount Everest.
