Smarties

Smarties are dragée chocolate confections marketed by Swiss company Nestlé. They were first manufactured in 1937 by British company H.I. Rowntree & Company of York. British production was discontinued in 2007, moving to Hamburg, Germany. Smarties are oblate spheroids with a minor axis of about 5 mm (0.2 in) and a major axis of about 12 mm (0.5 in). They come in eight colours: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, pink and brown. Blue Smarties were temporarily replaced by white ones in 2005, due to concerns about the safety of the synthetic dyes in food. Smarties are sold in many regions around the world, but are not distributed (except via parallel import) in the United States, where the trademark name is held by the Smarties Candy Company. Their product, also called Smarties, is a hard tablet candy with no filling. Mars Inc. sells a candy in the US called M&M's, which is very similar to Smarties but with a printed white m.