In February 2005, the Smarties tube was replaced with a hexagonal design. Some lids are very rare and are now regarded as collectors' items. Over the last 25 years, Nestlé and Rowntree's have manufactured five billion Smarties lids. The purpose of this, according to a Rowntree's spokesperson in the 1980s, was for them to be useful as a teaching aid to encourage young children to recognise the letters. Smarties in the UK were traditionally sold in cylindrical cardboard tubes, capped with a colourful plastic lid usually having a letter of the alphabet on it.
Later, the sweet was rebranded as "Smarties". Rowntree's was forced to drop the words "chocolate beans" in 1937 due to trading standards requirements (the use of the word "beans" was felt to be misleading ) so adopted the "Milk Chocolate in a Crisp Sugar Shell". The product was renamed "Smarties Chocolate Beans" in 1937. Rowntree's of York, England, have been making "Chocolate Beans" since at least 1882. This name is also used in some Latin American countries (e.g., Lentejas in Peru). Subsequently, it was produced prevalently in Holešov as well within Czechoslovakia, and afterwards also in separated the Czech Republic (and it is distributed also in Slovakia, Hungary, Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands ), as Lentilky under the Sfinx or Orion brand, which fall under Nestlé since 1992. Several years later, the name Lentilky was used and registered by Philipp Kneisl, founder of the Holešov factory, later renamed to Sfinx. Ī similar product has been produced by Kneisl company in Holešov, Moravia, since 1907. Smarties are not distributed (except via parallel import) in the United States, where the rights to the name belong to the Smarties Candy Company, which manufactures its own hard tablet sweet under the registered trademark name Smarties. They come in eight colours: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, mauve, pink and brown, although the blue variety was temporarily replaced by a white variety in some countries, while an alternative natural colouring dye of the blue colour was being researched. Smarties are oblate spheroids with a minor axis of about 5 mm (0.2 in) and a major axis of about 12 mm (0.5 in). Rowntree & Company in the UK, and are currently produced by Nestlé. They have been manufactured since 1937, originally by H.I. Smarties are colour-varied sugar-coated chocolate confectionery. For other uses, see Smarties (disambiguation).Įurope (Especially Western and Central Europe), Canada, South Africa, Australasia, Middle East For the confectionery distributed in the United States, see Smarties (tablet candy). This article is about the internationally distributed chocolate confectionery.