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!
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- Written by Karen Smith-Will
- Parent Category: Research
- Category: Life Savers: 100+ Years of Sweetness
1913: $2,900 paid to Clarance Crane for his Life Savers business (Edward)
1928: $22 million received by Edward Noble for the company (Edward)
1956: The company was valued at $16 million prior to the merger with Beech Nut (Corporations).
1981, December 30: "the Company [Nabisco] purchased sub¬ stantially all of the assets, subject to certain liabilities, of Life Savers, Inc., a manufacturer of hard-roll candy and chewing gum, for $260 million. (Annual)
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- Written by Karen Smith-Will
- Parent Category: Research
- Category: Life Savers: 100+ Years of Sweetness
Because there is such a range of repetitive information about Life Savers manufacturing, this site is going to focus on more granular information found from earlier sources. If you find any primary or secondary sources that add to or contradict this information, please let us know. There was only a somewhat limited amount of manufacturing information that has been identified from the Beech Nut corporate records.
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- Category: Life Savers: 100+ Years of Sweetness
Thinking about an invention usually employs an emphasis on the product itself. However, if you cannot transfer eggs to someone's kitchen without breaking them, there can be a lot of waste. Certain packaging decisions in the progression of Life Savers™️ influenced their quality, taste, and even safety.
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- Parent Category: Research
- Category: Life Savers: 100+ Years of Sweetness
In some ways, the entire Life Savers™️ Virtual Museum describes the history of Life Savers. But this section is designed to tell the story of Life Savers' sweet success.
In books and at other websites, there are already quite a few articles about the history of Life Savers. Not surprisingly, they tend to include quite a few errors. Our goal is to represent only details with proven sources.
Also, this site is not intended to provide biographies for Clarence Crane, Edward Noble, Robert P. Noble or Roy Allen. As utterly pivotal as they were to the Life Savers products, their lives were far broader than just this one product line. Their biographers and hometown museums are much better suited for representing their histories with finesse and balance.
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In ~1914, a South American order for 450,000 packages was exported (Modern, p. 95). I sure wish I knew which country received those packages! Maybe someday...
Royal Productos Alimenticios, CA produced the following flavors we've identified so far:
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- Parent Category: Research
- Category: Life Savers: 100+ Years of Sweetness
1912 - the year it was created (Noble)
1913 - $3,800 (Noble)
1925 - $11,500,000 (Noble)
1951 - $30 million (Modern)
1955 - "13.5% net on a $20,382,000 gross," per Time Magazine (1956).
1980 - $342 million (Nabisco)
1982 - "The Company’s net sales in 1982 were $5.9 billion, a 1% increase over 1981 net sales." (Annual)
1997 - In the context of a Life Savers competition, it was noted that "More than 10 rolls of Lifesavers candy are purchased every second of every day in the United States." Retrieved from https://www.mcall.com/1997/08/13/lucky-life-saver-roll-could-make-winner-instant-millionaire/
2022 - Mars' sales in the gum and mints category was $3.2 billion (PR Newswire 2023).
2026 (projection) - Mars signaled that the gum and mints category category was projected to hit $4.2 billion by 2026 (PR Newswire 2023).
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- Parent Category: Research
- Category: Life Savers: 100+ Years of Sweetness
Man, I love the British Isles! A significant amount of my heritage comes from that area, so I'm very prone to getting excited about things from the UK. But did I pick up Life Savers™️ when I was there?
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- Parent Category: Research
- Category: Life Savers: 100+ Years of Sweetness
North of the Border is an important place to get Life Savers, too...has been the case, since early in Life Savers history. They've even had flavors not available in the US, like "Raisin."
Things shifted in 2002, when even the Life Savers sold in the US began being manufactured in Canada, as shown in the bottom photo to the left.
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- Parent Category: Research
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It took a little while for me to find history about Life Savers in South Africa. How did I ultimately find the information? I switched from looking for "Life Savers", to looking for "Lifesavers".
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- Parent Category: Research
- Category: Life Savers: 100+ Years of Sweetness
Of all the countries that have acquired permission to develop and distribute Life Savers™️, Australia appears to have embraced The Candy with a Hole.
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- Written by Karen Smith-Will
- Parent Category: Research
- Category: Life Savers: 100+ Years of Sweetness
Every Christmas, someone--often my Grandma--gave me a Life Savers™️ Storybook. And 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." Although I would occasionally buy Life Savers at the penny candy counter at my local Selden's Department Store, my best stash came each Christmas in the form of the Storybook.
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