Baby Ruth
Product type | Confectionery |
---|---|
Owner | Ferrara Candy Company Nestlé |
Country | United States |
Introduced | 1921 |
Previous owners | |
Website | www |
Baby Ruth is an American candy bar made of peanuts, caramel, and milk chocolate-flavored nougat, covered in compound chocolate.[1] Created in 1920, and named after the deceased U.S. presidential daughter, Ruth Cleveland, it is distributed by the Ferrara Candy Company, a subsidiary of Ferrero.[2]
History
In 1920, the Curtiss Candy Company refashioned its Kandy Kake into the Baby Ruth, and it became the best-selling confection in the five-cent confectionery category by the late 1920s.[3][4][5] The bar was a staple of the Chicago-based company for more than six decades.
Curtiss was purchased by Nabisco in 1981. In 1990, RJR Nabisco sold the Curtiss brands to Nestlé.[6] Ferrero acquired Nestlé USA's confectionery brands, including Baby Ruth, in 2018.[7] Ferrero folded production of the acquired brands into the Ferrara Candy Company.[8]
Ferrara relaunched Baby Ruth in December 2019. The new recipe includes dry-roasted peanuts grown in the United States, whereas previous versions contained peanuts roasted in oil.[9] It also removed the food preservative TBHQ.[10]
Etymology
Although the name of the candy bar sounds like the name of the famous
In the trivia book series Imponderables,
However, David Mikkelson of Snopes.com denies the claim that the Williamsons invented the recipe, as George Williamson was head of the Williamson Candy Company, producers of the Oh Henry! bar. He continues to say that "the Baby Ruth bar came about when Otto Schnering, founder of the Curtiss Candy Company, made some alterations to his company's first candy offering, a confection known as 'Kandy Kake'".[14][15]
Marketing
To promote the candy, company founder Otto Schnering chartered a plane in 1923 to drop thousands of Baby Ruth bars, each with its own miniature parachute, over the city of Pittsburgh.[5][6] Thereafter, Schnering performed the parachute drops in various cities in over forty states.[5]
In 1929, the Curtiss Candy Company sponsored The Baby Ruth Hour, a CBS Radio program.[5]
As if to tweak their own official denial of the name's origin, after Babe Ruth's "called shot" at Chicago's Wrigley Field in the 1932 World Series, Curtiss installed an illuminated advertising sign for Baby Ruth on the roof of one of the flats across Sheffield Avenue, near where Ruth's home run ball had landed in center field.[16] The sign stood for some four decades before being removed.[17]
In 1985, Nabisco paid $100,000 for the product placement of Baby Ruth to appear in the film The Goonies.[18]
In 1992, the company sponsored
In 1995, a company representing the Ruth estate licensed his name and likeness for use in a Baby Ruth marketing campaign.[19]
On p. 34 of the spring 2007 edition of the Chicago Cubs game program, there is a full-page ad showing a partially unwrapped Baby Ruth in front of the Wrigley ivy, with the caption, "The official candy bar of major league baseball, and proud sponsor of the Chicago Cubs."
Continuing the baseball-oriented theme, during the summer and post-season of the 2007 season, a TV ad for the candy bar showed an entire stadium (identified as Dodger Stadium) filled with people munching Baby Ruths, and thus having to hum rather than singing along with "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the seventh-inning stretch.
Ingredients
The original flavor U.S. edition, listed by weight in decreasing order, contains
Current ingredients used by Ferrero: (in descending order) Sugar, Dry Roasted Peanuts, Corn Syrup, Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil (Palm Kernel, Coconut, and Soybean), Nonfat Milk, Cocoa, Less than 2% of High Fructose Corn Syrup, Dairy Product Solids, Glycerin, Dextrose, Salt, Soy Lecithin, Lactic Acid Esters, Carrageenan.[22]
Sizes
In addition to the single 1.9 ounce (53.8-gram) bar (sold in packages as Full Size), Baby Ruth is also sold in a 3.7-ounce (100 g) (King Size), a 3.3-ounce (93.5 g) Share Pack (two pieces), and in packages of Fun Size and Miniatures.[20][23]
Related products
Nestlé produces a Baby Ruth
In popular culture
A popular 1956 song, "A Rose and a Baby Ruth", was written by John D. Loudermilk and recorded by George Hamilton IV.[25]
In a 1960 episode of Leave It to Beaver, Beaver and his friends lose an old autographed baseball belonging to Beaver's father. They find another ball and try to fake the signatures. One they add is "Baby Ruth".
In the 1979 Taxi episode "Louie and the Nice Girl", Louie De Palma (Danny DeVito) brags about getting the first Baby Ruth out of the vending machine after Zena (Rhea Pearlman) restocks it.[26]
The Baby Ruth bar is infamously featured in a scene in the 1980 movie Caddyshack that takes place at a pool party, in which the bar is mistaken for human feces.[27]
Baby Ruth was used in the 1985 American film The Goonies[28] by Chunk to befriend Sloth.
In the 1985 Ghostbusters novelization by Richard Mueller, Egon Spengler frequently is said to be eating Baby Ruth candy bars.
In the 1993 film The Sandlot, Scotty Smalls (after using his stepfather's Babe Ruth-autographed baseball in a game and wanting to get it back after he hit it over the fence into a backyard) mistakenly tells his friends that it was autographed by "Baby Ruth"; his friends knew what he meant to say and shout "BABE RUTH!" before running to the fence to see the ball before it is taken away by a demonic dog that they call "the Beast".
In the 1998 film The Mighty both Max and Kevin are awarded Baby Ruth bars for taking care of a problem in a local store.
In a 2002 episode of The Simpsons, "The Great Louse Detective", Bart Simpson pranks people at a luxury spa by floating a Baby Ruth down a mineral bath.
In the 2004 film Hellboy, a Baby Ruth bar is used to lure and mollify the infant Hellboy when he is discovered after the destruction of the Nazi portal.
In the 2005 film Four Brothers, Angel Mercer (played by Tyrese Gibson) offers to give a local kid playing baseball an entire box of Baby Ruth bars if he helps Angel by creating a distraction so Angel can ambush a dirty cop at his home.
A "Baby Ruth" candy bar appears in the 2006 Family Guy episode "Hell Comes to Quahog" when Meg feeds Sloth from the 1985 film The Goonies.[29]
In the television series Friends, Rachel Green (played by Jennifer Aniston) and Ross Geller (played by David Schwimmer) are discussing baby names, almost settling on the name Ruth until Rachel excitedly says "Yes! We're having a little baby Ruth..." and they realise the obvious brand recognition joke.
See also
References
- ^ History. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
- ^ "Brands | Ferrara Candy Company". www.ferrarausa.com. Retrieved June 19, 2019.
- ISBN 978-0-19-988576-3. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-374-71110-8. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-313-39393-8. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
- ^ a b Zeldes, Leah A. (June 27, 2011). "Named for slugger or president's kid, candy is Chicago's baby". Dining Chicago. Chicago's Restaurant & Entertainment Guide. Archived from the original on June 7, 2019. Retrieved June 30, 2011.
- ^ "Ferrero Completes Acquisition of Nestlé USA's Confectionary Business". Business Wire. March 31, 2018. Retrieved May 7, 2018.
- ^ Watrous, Monica (May 23, 2019). "Inside Ferrara Candy Co.'s playbook". Food Business News. Retrieved February 8, 2023.
- ^ Sherred, Kristina (May 28, 2019). "As Kellogg-Keebler deal closes, Ferrara poised to reach $3bn in sales". confectionerynews.com. Retrieved June 19, 2019.
- ^ Myers, Anthony (February 12, 2020). "Baby Ruth named Candy Bar Product of The Year winner". confectionerynews.com. Retrieved February 8, 2023.
- ^ George H. Ruth Candy Co. v. Curtiss Candy Co, 49 F.2d 1033 (Cust. & Pat. App. 1931) ("That confusion is likely between appellee's mark, "Baby Ruth," and appellant's mark, "Ruth's Home Run, George H. 'Babe' Ruth," is apparent.").
- Feldman, David. What Are Hyenas Laughing At, Anyway? (1995), p. 84.
- ^ Feldman, David. How Do Astronauts Scratch an Itch? (1996), pp. 288–289.
- ^ Feldman, David. Do Elephants Jump? (2004), pp. 264–265.
- ^ Mikkelson, David (December 31, 1998). "Baby Ruth". Snopes. Retrieved January 30, 2021.
- ISBN 978-1-61234-411-9. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
- ISBN 978-0-7603-3246-7. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
- ISBN 978-0-8093-2082-0. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
- ^ Sandomir, Richard (June 6, 2006). "Baseball adopts a candy, whatever it is named for – Business – International Herald Tribune". New York Times. Retrieved June 23, 2009.
- ^ a b Gomstyn, Alice (November 14, 2008). "Chocolate Lovers Pained by Candy Changes". ABC News. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
- ISBN 978-0-16-075591-0. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
- ^ Staff. "Baby Ruth bar - Ingredients". Baby Ruth. Ferrero. Retrieved December 15, 2023.
- ISBN 978-1-58333-111-8. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
- ISBN 978-1-62349-363-9. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
- ISBN 978-0-7864-7461-5. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
- ^ "Taxi: Season 2, Episode 1 script | Subs like Script". subslikescript.com. Retrieved January 26, 2023.
- ISBN 978-1-932595-21-5. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
- ISBN 978-0-8065-2319-4. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
- ^ Iverson, Dan (September 25, 2006). "Family Guy: "Hell Comes to Quahog" Review". IGN. Retrieved November 28, 2007.
Further reading
- ISBN 978-1582343075.
- "Baby Ruth, Butterfinger and Crunch are going natural". The Washington Post. February 18, 2015.