The Ridiculous Number Of M&M's Made Each Day

When you were a kid, chances are there was an opportunity at some point or other to guess how many candies were in a jar to win a prize. Whether it was jelly beans, M&M's, or some other candy, might have changed. Even if you stood there with the eraser of a pencil pointed at the jar trying to count the candies you could see, it was still hard to imagine just how many were in there. The experience might have led you to wonder how many of the small candies — colorfully coated chocolate that melts in your mouth, not in your hand — are made every day. Similarly, it is a surprisingly large number that would be hard to guess, too. 

Fortunately, those who work at Mars candy factories where M&M's are made have an idea that cuts the guesswork out of the estimation. Though there are factories turning out the morsel candies all over the world, there are just two in the United States. Those factories are located in Cleveland, Tennessee, and Hackettstown, New Jersey (via CNN Business, posted on YouTube). In 2018, the Tennessee factory marked its 40th anniversary there (via Times Free Press).

At the time, the Cleveland chocolate factory reported that it was making 300 million M&M's every day. According to the Times Free Press, that translates into 40 truckloads of M&M's every single day — and only from a single factory, too. If the Hackettstown M&M's factory were the same size and produced the same number of the candy, that would total close to 600 million M&M's being made in the U.S. daily. However, the amount of M&M's made in New Jersey is less clear.

Keep in mind that this number has grown over the past two years. According to NJ Spotlight, there are 400 million M&M's made daily. The publication also claims that roughly half of those are made at the Hackettstown location. While we may never know just how many M&M's are made worldwide every day, at least we know the U.S. makes somewhere between 400-600 million daily. That's a lot of M&M's!