What does M&Ms stand for?

M&M's are a popular chocolate treat, but there's a interesting backstory about how the brand came to be - and it involves two big chocolate rivals coming together.

In a post to TikTok, Claire (@condimentclaire) gave an insight into the events that led the candy covered chocolate to become and remain popular to this day.

The story is described by her as "juicy," with "so much family drama," involving Forrest Mars Sr whose father is Mars founder Frank C. Mars and Bruce Murrie whose father is Hershey executive William Murrie.

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"My most fun chocolate candy history fact is M&M and why it is called M&M, basically there's so much family drama here and it's so juicy, it's so good," Claire began.

"The Mars company started before Hershey's by this guy, and his son was really good at coming up with chocolate bars."

Though the TikToker explained how it all started when Forrest Mars Sr had a fall out with his father.

The son then goes to Europe where he discovers people are eating "chocolate little pebbles," with candy coating on the outside during the Spanish Civil War and wanted to bring this to the US market.

But he didn't want to give this idea to his dad and instead he chose to go to family business rivals Hershey's.

"He goes to Hershey's and he's like I am the son of Mars but I don't want to give it to my father, let's just work together."

"The guy who is running Hershey's, his last name is Murrie, he was like sure but you have to work with my son. So they worked together and created these little candies."

And so the two collaborated on the product and decided to name it after themselves - Mars & Murrie to create the recognisable brand M&M.

"They called them Mars, like the first guy's last name, and Murrie the second guy's last name, 'M&M.'"

Claire then provided further insight into why M&M's "popped off" back in the day.

"...they created it right before World War Two and in World War Two they made this deal with the government that in every soldier's bag were M&M's.'

The reason why M&M''s were exclusively sold to the military in the 1940s was because the candy was "heat-resistant and easy-to-transport," as part of a soldiers rations, according to History.

Though M&M's didn't get their iconic M on the candy shells until 1950, the letter started out as black but changed to white two years later.

Since sharing the backstory behind the origins of M&M's, viewers expressed how they loved learning about the story.

One person wrote: "Now this is history I'm interested in."

"Not my grandfather from WWII working for M&Ms after he got back and getting free candy all the time. They got him good I guess," another person said.

Someone else added: "I had no idea this was the reason they were called M&M's it's pretty interesting ngl."

"If I still was in school and had to write a history report this would be my topic," a fourth person commented.

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