When Did Marathon Become Snickers?
There was a time when Mars' best-selling chocolate bar, Snickers, was known by a very different name in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It was originally named Marathon, and many people over a certain age will certainly remember the original name.
Snickers was launched in the U.S. during 1930, and its name comes from a horse owned by the Mars family. For the UK and Irish market, the bar was named Marathon. The name was changed to Snickers in 1990 to bring it in line with the rest of the world.
As you can see on this Marathon wrapper from 1990, apart from the name, the design looked very similar to Snickers, with a brown background, blue main text and red with yellow highlights. It was stated as being "packed with peanuts" and "really satisfies".
In 2020, a Marathon Retro Edition returned to the shelves of Morrisons and McColls newsagents as a 12-week limited edition.
There were three main versions of Snickers being sold in 2023; Original, Crisp and Creamy with peanut butter.
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Is a Snickers bar smaller than a Marathon?
Between 1990 and 2009, UK Snickers bars were the same size and weight as Marathon, weighing in at 62.5g. The weight was reduced to 58g in 2009, and then to 48g in 2013. So the answer is yes, today's Snickers bars are 14.5 grams lighter than original Marathon bars, and therefore smaller in overall size.
Snickers now also comes in a Creamy Peanut Butter flavour, and also as Duo (which features two bars in one pack), and a Protein bar.
Ingredients
The popular chocolate bar will be 100 years old in 2030. In the 1930s, the bar consisted of white sugar, sweet milk chocolate, corn syrup, peanuts, milk condensed with sugar, coconut oil, malted milk, whites of eggs and salt.
The main ingredients in the bar today are nougat, peanuts, caramel and a milk chocolate coating. The milk chocolate coating consists of sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, skim milk, lactose, milk fat, soy lecithin, artificial flavour. The ingredients inside the bar are peanuts, corn syrup, sugar, palm oil, skimmed milk, lactose, salt, egg whites, artificial flavour.
Above is a Marathon chocolate bar captured from a 1987 TV advert
U.S. Marathon Bar (1970s)
A Marathon bar was sold in the U.S. by Mars during between 1973 and 1981 which had an orange and yellow wrapper and was similar to Cadbury's Curly Wurly, but was discontinued.
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