Candy Trivia Questions and Answers: 30 Sweet Questions for Kids and Families

Quick answer: Good candy trivia questions cover the stories behind famous sweets. The M’s in M&M’s stand for Mars and Murrie. Snickers is said to have been named after a horse. Cotton candy was co-invented by a dentist, and PEZ takes its name from the German word for peppermint. Below are 30 candy trivia questions with answers, from easy to tricky.

Each answer was checked against company archives and trusted history sources, including the Hershey Community Archives, Smithsonian Magazine, HISTORY and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Where a brand’s own story differs from the historical record, we say so.

Easy Candy Trivia for Kids (1–10)

Start with these. Most kids know the candies, even if they don’t know the stories behind them.

1. What do the two M’s in M&M’s stand for?
   Answer: Mars and Murrie, for Forrest Mars Sr. and Bruce Murrie, the two men who started the candy (Lemelson-MIT).
2. In what year did M&M’s first go on sale?
   Answer: 1941.
3. Which big customer bought M&M’s during World War II?
   Answer: The U.S. military. The candy shell kept the chocolate from melting easily, so soldiers could carry it (HISTORY).
4. Which candy bar is said to have been named after a horse the Mars family loved?
   Answer: Snickers. Even the brand says the bar was “allegedly” named after a horse (Snickers).
5. The name of which candy comes from the German word for peppermint?
   Answer: PEZ. The name is taken from the German word Pfefferminz (PEZ).
6. Which ring-shaped candy was first made as a summer candy that wouldn’t melt in the heat?
   Answer: Life Savers (Encyclopedia of Cleveland History).
7. What was cotton candy called when it was sold at the 1904 World’s Fair?
   Answer: Fairy Floss.
8. In what year were Hershey’s Kisses first made?
   Answer: 1907 (Hershey Community Archives).
9. Who was the Tootsie Roll named after?
   Answer: Inventor Leo Hirshfield’s daughter, Clara, whose nickname was “Tootsie” (Tootsie Roll Industries).
10. Which candy bar was first sold as three pieces in chocolate, vanilla and strawberry?
    Answer: 3 Musketeers. It launched in 1932.

Candy History Trivia (11–22)

These questions go further back. They’re good for older kids, teens and adults.

11. In which U.S. city was the cotton candy machine invented in 1897?
    Answer: Nashville, Tennessee.
12. What was the surprising job of one of cotton candy’s inventors?
    Answer: He was a dentist. William J. Morrison worked with confectioner John C. Wharton (National Geographic).
13. What did a box of Fairy Floss cost at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair?
    Answer: 25 cents, which was half the price of admission to the fair (Smithsonian Magazine).
14. In what country and year was PEZ invented?
    Answer: Austria, in 1927, by Eduard Haas III.
15. What was PEZ first marketed as?
    Answer: A breath mint for adults and an alternative to smoking. The famous dispensers and kid-friendly flavors came later (Smithsonian Magazine).
16. Who created Life Savers in 1912, and in which city?
    Answer: Clarence Crane, in Cleveland, Ohio.
17. How much did Edward Noble pay for the Life Savers brand in 1913?
    Answer: $2,900.
18. In what year did Hershey’s Kisses get their famous little paper plume?
    Answer: 1921. Before that, every Kiss was wrapped by hand.
19. In which town are the streetlights shaped like Hershey’s Kisses?
    Answer: Hershey, Pennsylvania. They line Chocolate Avenue and were dedicated in December 1963 (Hershey Community Archives).
20. Before starting his own candy company, H.B. Reese worked for which famous chocolate maker?
    Answer: Hershey. He managed one of the company’s dairy farms before introducing peanut butter cups around 1928 (Hershey Community Archives).
21. Which Jelly Belly flavor was created so a president could have red, white and blue jelly beans at his inauguration?
    Answer: Blueberry. It was developed in 1980 for Ronald Reagan’s 1981 inauguration (Reagan Library).
22. Which Boston pharmacist built a lozenge-cutting machine in 1847 that helped start the company behind Necco Wafers?
    Answer: Oliver Chase (Smithsonian Magazine).

Halloween Candy Trivia (23–27)

It’s trick-or-treat season, so here’s a short spooky-sweet round. For a bigger Halloween quiz, try our Halloween trivia questions.

23. Who is usually credited with creating candy corn in the 1880s?
    Answer: George Renninger of the Wunderle Candy Company in Philadelphia (Smithsonian Magazine).
24. Under what funny name did the Goelitz company sell candy corn starting in 1898?
    Answer: “Chicken Feed” (National Geographic).
25. Why did “Chicken Feed” make sense as a name for candy corn?
    Answer: The candy is shaped like a kernel of corn, which farmers fed to their chickens.
26. True or false: candy corn has changed a lot since it was invented in the 1800s.
    Answer: False. Smithsonian Magazine reports that candy corn has hardly changed since the 19th century.
27. Tootsie Roll Industries says its candy was first sold in 1896. In which U.S. city?
    Answer: New York City, at a small Brooklyn shop, according to the company. Some historians point out that the patents, trademarks and ads for Tootsie Rolls date from 1907–1909, so the 1896 date is the company’s own claim (TIME).

Lightning Round (28–30)

Read these fast. The first player to shout the right answer gets the point.

28. In what year did the Snickers bar launch?
    Answer: 1930.
29. Before 1921, how were Hershey’s Kisses wrapped?
    Answer: By hand.
30. Why did 3 Musketeers drop its vanilla and strawberry pieces?
    Answer: Wartime rationing of ingredients during World War II made the three-piece bar hard to keep making, so it became a single chocolate bar (The Daily Meal; the original three flavors are confirmed by Snopes).

Candy Timeline at a Glance

How to Host a Candy Trivia Game

1. Form teams of two to four players.
2. Play three rounds: easy (1–10), history (11–22) and Halloween (23–27). Then use the lightning round (28–30) to break ties.
3. Use candy as points. Give one small piece for each right answer, and let teams eat their winnings at the end.
4. Add a taste test. Blindfold one player per team and have them name a candy by flavor alone.

Want more? Mix in our food trivia questions, the all-ages family trivia questions or trivia questions for kids, and finish with a few sweet candy riddles.

Candy Trivia FAQ

What do the M’s in M&M’s stand for?

They stand for Mars and Murrie: Forrest Mars Sr., son of the Mars candy company founder, and Bruce Murrie, son of a Hershey executive. M&M’s went on sale in 1941.

Who invented cotton candy?

Nashville dentist William J. Morrison and confectioner John C. Wharton invented a machine to spin sugar into floss in 1897. They sold it as “Fairy Floss” at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.

How old is candy corn?

Candy corn dates to the 1880s. George Renninger of the Wunderle Candy Company in Philadelphia is usually credited with creating it, and the Goelitz company sold it as “Chicken Feed” from 1898.

Why is it called a Snickers bar?

The story is that Snickers was named after a horse the Mars family loved. The brand itself says the bar was “allegedly” named after a horse. It first went on sale in Chicago in 1930 for five cents.

Are these candy trivia questions good for kids?

Yes. Questions 1–10 suit kids ages 7 and up, and the history and Halloween rounds work for older kids, teens and adults. Since everyone knows the candies, the whole family can play together.

Sources: HISTORY: wartime origins of M&M’s; Lemelson-MIT: Forrest Mars; U.S. Patent 618,428 (cotton candy machine); Smithsonian: Fairy Floss; Hershey Community Archives; Tootsie Roll history; PEZ history; Mars history; Encyclopedia of Cleveland History: Life Savers; National Geographic: candy corn.

Last updated: October 2026.