Somewhere in his travels, Mars had come across a candy that was essentially tiny chocolate pellets surrounded by a sugar shell. He may have seen soldiers eating them during the Spanish civil war; no one seems to know for sure. What is known is that in 1940, Mars concocted his own version of candy-coated chocolate drops
and took them to the Hershey Corporation. There he proposed an 80-20 partnership to Bruce Murrie, the son of Hershey executive William Murrie, where Bruce would be the 20-percent partner. At the time, World War II was developing, and chocolate would be rationed during this period. The Hershey Corporation, however, already had a deal to provide chocolate for the troops.
Bruce Murrie helped create this candy. M&M’s got their name of the abbreviation of their inventors Forrest Mars and Bruce Murrie. In 1941, the first M&M’s were introduced to American GIs serving in WWII. The first wrapper that they came out in was a cardboard tube and in 1948 it became the brown bag we now know. In 1950, the first “m” was imprinted in black, now giving them a trademark. In 1954, chocolate peanut M&M’s are introduced and also the black m on the candies was changed to white. They get their own logo “melts in your mouth, not hands” and animated characters made a television debut. Throughout time more and more different types of M&M’s came out like the peanut butter, pretzel, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, dark chocolate peanut, coconut, mint chocolate, almonds, wild cherry, among other special lines he brought out.