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MEMORIES:
Manufacturer:
Pez
What two things do kids love more than anything else in the world? Toys and candy. Combine the two and you’ve got merchandising gold. Pez did just that – and created a powerhouse of both regularly selling candy and a collector’s dream.
What came first, the candy or the dispenser? The candy – invented in 1927 by Eduard Haas III in Austria. The name Pez came from three letters in the German word 'pfefferminz,' which means peppermint. He marketed the candy to adult smokers and sold them in small pocket tins. In 1948, the dispensers were created, designed to look like cigarette lighters and advertised as an "easy, hygienic" way to carry the brick mints. Today, these early, headless dispensers are called “regulars” by those fluent in Pez.
In 1952, Pez dispensers came to America and were marketed to kids. The peppermint was replaced with fruit flavor, and brightly colored heads topped off the dispensers. When you pushed the head back, a little candy brick would be pushed to the top to be removed. After you had eaten all the candy, the dispenser could be reused with a new stack.
Flavors of Pez vary by country. In the U.S., grape, lemon, orange, and strawberry are available. You can buy cherry in Canada and Europe, but American kids found that it tasted like cough syrup. Hungary and Thailand have chocolate, and Spain has raspberry and apple flavors. Some health-conscious countries sell IZO Pez, a vitamin-fortified candy. And some flavors just haven’t stood the test of time – anise, coffee, eucalyptus, and flower are just not flavors the kids are eating these days.
In 1983, Pez opened a U.S. plant in Orange, Connecticut. It manufactures candy and dispensers twenty-four hours a day, moving a billion packages of candy each year, along with dozens of different dispenser models at a time.
A little cosmetic change came to Pez in 1987, when plastic feet appeared on some dispensers. This is the point that separates the vintage Pez from the modern. Santa Claus, Mickey Mouse, and the Flintstones are some of the line’s bestselling characters, but there are over three hundred different kinds. Collectors keep their eyes out for soft head and rubber head varieties, and much sought-after porcelain editions.
Pez collectors are a passionate group – they have dozens of websites, collectors conventions, and a museum in Burlingame, California. Each features shelf upon shelf of little plastic heads, all with a deliciously sweet surprise inside.
