Life Savers: 100+ Years of Sweetness
As an elementary school kid, I thought, "When I'm an adult, I want to have 1 of every flavor of Life Saver there is." Life Savers Virtual Museum & Blog is the outcome of that quirky wish!
- Details
- Written by Karen Smith-Will
- Parent Category: Research
- Category: Life Savers: 100+ Years of Sweetness
By researching news articles, advertisements, and ordering cards available to companies purchasing them, one can start to get a sense of the start and end dates for flavors. This would have been so much easier if the companies that made Life Savers had kept meticulous records! If those records are out there somewhere, please let me know.
1912 - 1 flavor
Peppermint
16 November 1916 - 3 flavors were available,
according to a magazine ad, Pep⭕mint, Lic⭕rice, Wint⭕green, Cl⭕ve.
- Details
- Written by Karen Smith-Will
- Parent Category: Research
- Category: Life Savers: 100+ Years of Sweetness
What is the difference amongst the various Licorice-like Life Savers? Why were they so popular in the early days yet nearly nonexistent in the last 50 years?
- Details
- Written by Karen Smith-Will
- Parent Category: Research
- Category: Life Savers: 100+ Years of Sweetness
1915: 6,725,000 packages (Modern)
1920: 68,000,000 packages (Modern)
1950: 6,000,000,000 (billion!) individual candies (hole-in-one)
1950: annually more than 70,000,000 rolls of plaintiff's Life Savers Assorted Mints are sold, to say nothing of many millions of packages of other flavors (justia.com)
1960s: 616 million packages per year
“The five-story structure had turned out as many as 616 million rolls of Life Savers a year during its peak period in the 1960’s, said Ray Sammarco, former plant manager. (Building)
- Details
- Written by Karen Smith-Will
- Parent Category: Research
- Category: Life Savers: 100+ Years of Sweetness
Did you realize that there was a collaboration between Life Savers & clothing designer Kirkland Hall in the 1940s to 50s? You can just imagine a young housewife thinking, "This Cryst⭕Mint is so gorgeous, I'd like to have an outfit in this exact shade."
And don't you just want to find actual Life Savers flavors for each of these colors?! (Okay, maybe that part is just me...)
- Details
- Written by Karen Smith-Will
- Parent Category: Research
- Category: Life Savers: 100+ Years of Sweetness
I have business expertise in corporate change, so this topic is fascinating. There were several reasons that Noble felt changes should be made to the product. (To what extent Allen is involved is hard to say, though he clearly would have wanted his investment to be successful.)
Read more: Differences between Crane's & Noble's Life Savers™️
- Details
- Written by Karen Smith-Will
- Parent Category: Research
- Category: Life Savers: 100+ Years of Sweetness
Marketing was not Clarence Crane's thing.
But it was clearly Ed Noble's thing. Noble's first conversations with Crane were about taking Life Savers to the next level. As a personal customer, he thoughts the mints had potential.
But Crane knew his place: He was an idea generator--he was already ready to move on to the next thing. Even as someone new to the marketing world, Noble was a student of how to grow ideas.
- Details
- Written by Karen Smith-Will
- Parent Category: Research
- Category: Life Savers: 100+ Years of Sweetness
At some level, many of the articles in this Virtual Museum are about Life Savers in America. This article will not replicate that information.
However, this article will include the individual locations for the administrative offices of Life Savers and the manufacturing locations within the states. For more detailed manufacturing information, see Manufacturing.
- Details
- Written by Karen Smith-Will
- Parent Category: Research
- Category: Life Savers: 100+ Years of Sweetness
Because we have no specific documentation detailing everywhere Life Savers is or has been produced, it's still a surprise every time we find a new location. Puerto Rico is part of the United States; its Life Savers presence started prior by or before 1971. Imagine if Tropical Life Savers' pina colada, mango melon, banana & fruit punch were actually made in the Caribbean?!
- Details
- Written by Karen Smith-Will
- Parent Category: Research
- Category: Life Savers: 100+ Years of Sweetness
Life Savers were available in New Zealand--who knows, probably early on. But they were produced in Australia. That changed in 1963.
- Details
- Written by Karen Smith-Will
- Parent Category: Research
- Category: Life Savers: 100+ Years of Sweetness
As you would imagine, recipes for famous products can never be shared...they are the "secret sauce" that provides a certain chunk of a company's valuation. Nonetheless, the US Food and Drug Administration requires ingredients to be posted on product labels--albeit, without proportions.
- Details
- Written by Karen Smith-Will
- Parent Category: Research
- Category: Life Savers: 100+ Years of Sweetness
1915 - >$250,000 (Parker)
1980 - "Life Savers, with headquarters in New York and four plants, had operating earnings of $42 million on sales of $342 million in 1980." (Nabisco)
Page 2 of 4