Have you ever wondered, “how long ago did someone come up with the idea to make this candy”? Experts are not 100 percent sure, but today we believe that the first candy was created by ancient Egyptians over 2,000 years ago. Experts found manuscripts written by Egyptians showing what looked to be candy. They made their first candy using honey because of how sweet and pleasant it was to eat and nuts and other foods to make candy during this time. The word candy is from the Persian word Qandi, but experts know that candy is much older than in ancient Persia. During the Middle Age, the cost of sugar was high, so mostly rich people could eat and enjoy candy. Some of the earlier sweets were also considered medicine. A few hundred years later, during the Industrial Revolution, machines were made to make candy using sugar, which was soon affordable for everyone.

What is the oldest candy that comes to mind? Some of the oldest sweets come from all over the world. The oldest candy in the U.S. is Reese’s peanut butter cups, a well-loved candy here in the United States. Well, what if you found out that this peanut butter goodness was created in 1928 by H.B. Reese? Reese, in 1917, worked on a dairy farm by Milton Hershey, sound familiar? Reese was so inspired by Hershey that he created the first-ever peanut butter cup, creating his own company, H.B. Resse Candy Company. Later on, he decided to sell his company to, you guessed it, The Hershey Company. Now let’s talk a bit about the Hershey company, founded by Milton Hershey. Hershey decided in 1900 to create Hershey’s Milk Chocolate, becoming the first mass-produced chocolate in the United States. Most of the world’s chocolate bars were made in Switzerland, sometimes in Europe. For example, Nestle Milk Chocolate was made in Switzerland in 1875. Henri Nestle had created condensed milk and powdered baby milk. Daniel Peter, who worked alongside Nestle; together worked for seven years perfecting the milk chocolate process. Their first milk chocolate bar was shown in 1875, called Gala Peter. In 1879, Nestle and Peter created the Nestle Company, and the bar soon being released in the U.S. in 1919.