14. How are M&M's made?

Cocoa powder, sugar, dried milk and other ingredients must be made into tiny round candies that will then be covered with a colored candy coating and stamped with a small white "m" so that the candy is recognizable as an M&M.

Too many tiny roundish candies must be produced for the cocoa mixture to be put into tiny molds. Rather than individual molds, which would be time-consuming, there must be a device that has gears and that rolls the material around until thousands of small round cocoa balls are created.

The colored candy shell is likely a liquid that is poured over the cocoa tiny balls then allowed to cool and harden. When the candies are stamped with a tiny “m” is very likely when they become flattened into the classic trademarked shape. Rather than a perfect ball you have a ball flattened on one side.

How is the white paint of that “m” applied? The colored candy liquid has a thin white layer underneath. When you bite into an M&M candy, there seems to be a thin white later between the candy colored coating and the cocoa center. Perhaps a tiny printing press type “m” is pressed onto each ball creating both the trademarked shape and the little white “m”…. Perhaps the printing press device that stamps the “m” removes the color that has just been applied leaving behind the white “m” of the white layer underneath the colored coating.