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Butterfinger

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, seeButterfingers (disambiguation).
Butterfinger
Product typeConfectionery
OwnerFerrara Candy Company(since 2018)
CountryUnited States
Introduced1923;101 years ago(1923)
Previous ownersNestlé
Websitewww.butterfinger
Nestlé version (1990–2018); this wrapper was used from 2001 to 2018.

Butterfingeris acandy barmanufactured by theFerrara Candy Company,a subsidiary ofFerrero.[1]It consists of a layered crisppeanut buttercore covered in a "chocolatey" coating (it is not eligible to be referred to aschocolate,as it contains nococoa butter).[2][3]It was invented by Otto Schnering of theCurtiss Candy Companyin 1923. A popularity contest chose the name.

In its early years, the Butterfinger was promoted byShirley Templein the 1934 filmBaby Take a Bow.It was advertised by characters fromThe Simpsons(most notablyBart Simpson) from 1988 to 2001.

History[edit]

Butterfingers were invented by Otto Schnering in 1923. Schnering had founded theCurtiss Candy CompanynearChicago,Illinois,in 1922.[4]The company held a public contest to choose the name of this candy. In an early marketing campaign, the company dropped Butterfinger andBaby Ruthcandy bars from airplanes in cities across the United States as a publicity stunt that helped increase its popularity.

The candy bar was also promoted inBaby Take a Bow,a 1934 film featuringShirley Temple.

In 1964,Standard Brands,Inc. purchased theCurtiss Candy Company.It then merged withNabiscoin 1981.RJR Nabiscowas formed in 1985 by the merger of Nabisco Brands andR.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.

In December 1988, RJR Nabisco was purchased byKohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.in what was, at the time, the largest leveraged buyout in history. In February 1990, Nestlé, a Swiss multinational food and beverage company, bought Baby Ruth and Butterfinger from RJR Nabisco. When measured by revenues, Nestlé is by far the largest food company in the world.[5][6]

Butterfinger was withdrawn from the market in Germany in 1999, because of consumer rejection when it was one of the first products to be identified as containinggenetically modified ingredients(GMOs) from corn.[7][8]Butterfinger sales ended after a successful campaign byGreenpeacepushed Nestlé to remove the product from German supermarkets.[9]

With sales in 2010 of $598 million, Butterfinger had become increasingly popular and was typically ranked as the eleventh most popular candy bar sold in the $17.68 billionUnited Stateschocolate confectionery market between 2007 and 2010.[10]

In January 2018, Nestlé announced plans to sell over twenty of its US confectionery brands (including Butterfinger) to Italian chocolatierFerrero SpA,for $2.8 billion.[11]The deal was finalized in March 2018, and the newly acquired brands were folded into the operations of the Ferrero Candy Company.[12]

Recipe change[edit]

Ferrero reformulated the Butterfinger in January 2019, with labels displaying "Improved Recipe". "Better" Butterfinger, as it is identified in advertising, uses larger[citation needed]runner peanutsin the bar's core that are roasted at the manufacturing plant. The new bar also uses a higher percentage of cocoa and milk in the "chocolatey" coating and cuts ingredients such as the preservative TBHQ and hydrogenated oils.[13]

The packaging itself has also been upgraded to avoid spoilage.[14]

Representatives of the brand claimed that sales had "improved with the new recipe, specifically after posting a double-digit sales decline prior to the brand revamp."[citation needed]Some social media users have criticized the new recipe.[15]

Advertising[edit]

Beginning in 1988, Butterfinger was advertised withThe Simpsons,still a series of shorts inThe Tracey Ullman Showat the time. The first commercial was the advertisement "The Butterfinger Group", which featured the debut of the characterMilhouse Van Houten.The Simpsonswas immediately popular and boosted the candy's popularity. In 1992, the Simpsons began to appear in Butterfinger BB's commercials. TheSimpsons-Butterfinger marketing was phased out by 2001 but brought back in 2010.

Butterfinger campaigns include counting down the end of the world orBARmageddon,with evidence such as the first-ever,QRshapedcrop circlein Kansas, a Butterfingercomedy-horrormovie called “Butterfinger the 13th,” the first interactive digitalgraphic novelby a candy brand starring the Butterfinger Defense League, and several attention-grabbingApril Fool's Daypranks, including the renaming of the candy bar to “The Finger.”[16]

On April 1, 2008,Nestlélaunched anApril Fool's Dayprank in which they claimed that they had changed the name of the candy bar to "The Finger", citing consumer research that indicated that the original brand was "clumsy" and "awkward". The prank included a fake website promoting the change that featured a video press release.[17]When the joke was revealed, the website redirected visitors to the fictitious "Butterfinger Comedy Network".

In 2009, a new advertisement for Butterfinger was produced that appeared to be a homage to the earlierThe Simpsonscommercials. In February 2010, Butterfinger revived its "Nobody better lay a finger..." slogan as "Nobody's gonna lay a finger on my Butterfinger."[18]Acomedy horrorfilm entitledButterfinger The 13thwas made to promote the product in October 2011.[citation needed]

In April 2013, an official announcement via theTwitteraccount ofThe Simpsonsstated that the "Nobody better lay a finger on my Butterfinger" advertising campaign featuringBart Simpsonwould be returning.[19]In the opening sequence of "Treehouse of Horror XXVIII"(2017), the family appeared as candy in a bowl. Bart, a" Barterfinger "bar, tells his mother, Marge, a"Marge Bar",he is scared, and she comforts him by stating he was always the last to be taken.

In May 2024, The Simpsons returned for Butterfinger's 100th anniversary. Bart and Homer were featured on single and two pack wrappers while the whole family was on Fun Size packaging.[20]

Sponsorships[edit]

Butterfinger sponsored proFreestyle MotocrossriderNate Adams[21]as well as pro BMX riderRyan Nyquist[22]in 2003. Butterfinger also sponsored Blushi and other Twitch streamers in 2023.

Variations[edit]

Butterfinger Snackerz
Butterfinger Snackerz (candies)
  • Bites:In 2009, Butterfinger introduced Mini Bites, a product with small, bite-sized pieces of Butterfinger.
  • Snackerz:Butterfinger Snackerz is another bite-sized, smooth-centered version of the candy bar.
  • BB's:Starting in 1992, another form of Butterfinger bars was available named "BB's". Similar toWhoppersandMaltesers,they were roughly the size ofmarblesand sold in bags. They also were advertised by the Simpsons. Discontinued 2006, relaunched 2009 as Butterfinger Bites.
  • Buzz:During the height of theenergy drinkcraze in 2009, a two piece ‘king size’ version of the candy bar containing 80 milligrams ofcaffeinewas released with limited distribution.[23]The wrapper bears this warning: "Contains 80 mg per package (40 mg per piece), as much as in the leading energy drink. Not recommended for pregnant women, children or persons sensitive to caffeine." They were quickly discontinued.[5]
  • Ice Cream Bar:A product with an ice cream filling, the Butterfinger Ice Cream Bar, was introduced in 1991 and continues to be sold in individual bags to this day. Another product similar to that of Butterfinger Ice Cream Bars, but shaped in a nugget form, also was developed in 1992 and is now discontinued.
  • Crisp:Nestlé also produces Butterfinger Crisp bars, which are a form of chocolate covered wafer cookie, with a Butterfinger flavored cream. This is part of a line of Nestlé products under a "crisp" name, including Nestlé Crunch Crisp and Baby Ruth Crisp.
  • Cocoa Mix:Nestlé released a hot cocoa mix with the flavor of the Butterfinger bar. The packaging advertises the cocoa as having a chocolate and peanut butter taste.[24]
  • Cups:In 2014, a product similar toReese's Peanut Butter Cupswas introduced by Nestlé, the Butterfinger Peanut Butter Cup, which unlike Reese's Cups, has both crunchy and creamy peanut butter and covers the mix with milk chocolate.[25]It was the first new Butterfinger product introduced in more than five years. Nestlé spent two years developing the product.[26]However, they were discontinued in 2018 when the bars were sold to Ferrero SpA.
  • Naked:The Naked Butterfinger is a version of the standard size candy bar that will only have a coating of chocolate on the bottom to hold it together.
  • Dark:Made with Dark Chocolate. They were discontinued in 2018 when the bars were sold to Ferrero SpA.

Use by other manufacturers[edit]

Butterfingers are used in a part of Edy's Fun Flavors line (branded as Dreyer's west of the Rocky Mountains and outside the United States). The product is vanilla ice cream with a peanut butter swirl and bits of the Butterfinger candy bar in it.

Grocery store Kroger has a flavor in their "Jammed" line named Peanut Butter Candy Crunch that is a peanut-flavored frozen dairy dessert with Butterfinger chunks and a peanut butter swirl whose flavor resembles that of the Butterfinger candy bar.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^"Home".butterfinger.Retrieved2019-06-15.[permanent dead link]
  2. ^"Butterfinger".Nestlé USA.RetrievedSeptember 18,2022.
  3. ^"Butterfinger Has a New Recipe, but Still Doesn't Contain Any Real Chocolate".13 December 2018.
  4. ^Sanders, Dennis (1982).The First of Everything.Dell Publishing.p. 21.ISBN978-0385282833.
  5. ^ab"Nestlé's Brabeck: We have a" huge advantage "over big pharma in creating medical foods",CNN Money,1 April 2011
  6. ^"Nestlé: The unrepentant chocolatier",The Economist,29 October 2009. Retrieved 17 May 2012
  7. ^Jung, Alexander (December 26, 2005)."What Can a Nation Do? Taming the Globalization Monster".Spiegel Online.Retrieved2008-06-28.
  8. ^"Jugendliche bei Greenpeace"(in German). Greenpeace. May 15, 2003. Archived fromthe originalon 2009-01-01.Retrieved2008-06-28.
  9. ^K. Fahlenbrach; M. Klimke; J. Scharloth; L. Wong (2012).The Establishment Responds: Power, Politics, and Protest since 1945.Springer.
  10. ^Chocolate Confectionery Brand Shares 2007–2010 (Report). Euromonitor International. 2010.
  11. ^"Nestle selling U.S. candy brands to Nutella company".CNN.2018-01-16.Retrieved2018-01-16.
  12. ^"Ferrero Completes Acquisition of Nestlé USA's Confectionary Business".Business Wire.Business Wire, Inc. March 31, 2018.
  13. ^Taylor, Kate (February 11, 2019)."Nutella's parent company is rolling out a 'Better Butterfinger' ad campaign to highlight the candy brand's massive changes".Business Insider.RetrievedMarch 23,2019.
  14. ^"As Kellogg-Keebler deal closes, Ferrara poised to reach $3bn in sales".confectionerynews. 24 May 2019.Retrieved2019-06-15.
  15. ^Taylor, Kate (August 1, 2019)."Angry Butterfinger fans slam the candy bar's new recipe as trash and nasty".Business Insider.RetrievedSeptember 23,2019.
  16. ^"Butterfinger Celebrates 90ish Years Of Awesome-Ness"(Press release). Glendale, CALIF.: Nestlé USA. January 1, 2013.
  17. ^"The Finger Bar website".Archived fromthe originalon 2008-07-02.Retrieved2008-06-28.
  18. ^Butterfinger Ad Brings Back SloganArchived2013-04-09 at theWayback Machine
  19. ^"The Simpsons on Twitter:" Bart Simpson reunites with @Butterfinger in Nestle's "Nobody Better Lay A Finger" campaign. Follow the reunion on Twitter! #LoveAtFirstBite "".Twitter.Retrieved2016-01-30.
  20. ^Sheehan, Gavin (2024-05-13)."Butterfinger Celebrates Its 100th Anniversary With Simpsons Packaging".Bleeding Cool.Retrieved10 June2024.
  21. ^SupercrossKING (October 4, 2004)."NATE ADAMS ADDS ANOTHER GOLD AT THE LG WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS OF FREESTYLE MOTOCROSS".Retrieved2024-02-05.
  22. ^"Brands Ink Extreme Athletes As X Games Begin In Philly".2002-08-15.Retrieved2024-02-05.
  23. ^Chris McNamara (February 18, 2009)."Butterfinger with caffeine generates some buzz".
  24. ^ButterfingerArchivedNovember 10, 2015, at theWayback Machineat snackmemory
  25. ^"Butterfinger Cups".Nestle. Archived fromthe originalon 2014-01-20.Retrieved2014-01-23.
  26. ^Jenn Harris (2014-01-15)."Butterfinger cups to launch with Super Bowl ad".LA Times.Retrieved2014-01-23.

External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related toButterfinger.
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