Bun Bars are a line of

candy bar A candy bar is a type of candy that is in the shape of a bar. The most common type of candy bar is the chocolate bar, including both bars made of solid chocolate and combination candy bars, which are candy bars that combine chocolate with other ...

s manufactured by

Pearson's Candy Company Pearson's Candy Company is an American chocolate and confectionery manufacturer headquartered in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Founded as a confectionery distribution firm in 1909, the company began to manufacture its own products in 1912. Originall ...

Saint Paul, Minnesota Saint Paul (abbreviated St. Paul) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital of the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Ramsey County, Minnesota, Ramsey County. Situated on high bluffs overlooking a bend in the Mississip ...

, and available in the United States. Despite the name, Bun Bars are not bars at all, but actually round and flat, containing a disc made of maple or vanilla-flavored creme, or caramel, coated in milk chocolate and topped with a roasted peanut-chocolate cluster. The forerunners of Bun Bars were originally created in the 1920s by the Wayne Bun Candy Company in

Fort Wayne, Indiana Fort Wayne is a city in and the county seat of Allen County, Indiana, United States. Located in northeastern Indiana, the city is west of the Ohio border and south of the Michigan border. The city's population was 263,886 as of the 2020 Censu ...

. The Vanilla Cream Bun of 1947 was the first receiving the Bun name. Wayne Candies and their Bun Bars went through a string of corporate owners in the second half of the twentieth century. The first, the Leaf Confectionery subsidiary of

W. R. Grace William Russell Grace (May 10, 1832 – March 21, 1904) was an Irish-American politician, the first Roman Catholic mayor of New York City, and the founder of W. R. Grace and Company. Early life Grace was born in Ireland in Riverstown near the C ...

sold Wayne Candies in 1973 to

Standard Brands Standard Brands was a packaged foods company, formed in 1929 by J. P. Morgan with the merger of: * Fleischmann Company *Royal Baking Powder Company * E. W. Gillett Company of Canada (1929) - Toronto-based baking goods company (maker of Magic Bak ...

Curtiss Candy Company The Curtiss Candy Company was founded in 1916 by Otto Schnering near Chicago, Illinois. Wanting a more "American-sounding" name (due to anti-German sentiment during World War I), Schnering named his company using his mother's maiden name. Their ...

. Under Curtiss, they repackaged caramel Bun Bars as the Reggie! Bar in 1978, named for

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

star

Reggie Jackson Reginald Martinez Jackson (born May 18, 1946) is an American former professional baseball right fielder who played 21 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Kansas City / Oakland Athletics, Baltimore Orioles, New York Yankees, and Cali ...

. When Standard merged with

Nabisco Nabisco (, abbreviated from the earlier name National Biscuit Company) is an American manufacturer of cookies and snacks headquartered in East Hanover, New Jersey. The company is a subsidiary of Illinois-based Mondelēz International. Nabisco's ...

in 1981, Wayne Candies was briefly shut down before being sold to German confectioner

August Storck August Storck KG () is a German candy producer with headquarters in Berlin, owned by Axel Oberwelland. Its subsidiary in the United Kingdom has been the company Bendicks in Winchester since 1988. The main facility of Storck in Germany is in ...

KG. Then in 1992 it passed to

Pittsburgh Food & Beverage Company The Pittsburgh Food & Beverage Company was a holding company created in 1991 by entrepreneur Michael P. Carlow to manage a pair of struggling but iconic companies in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Originally joining the candymaker D. L. Clark Co., make ...

. Wayne's sister firm under Pittsburgh Food & Beverage,

D. L. Clark Company The D. L. Clark Company was founded in 1886 in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, now part of Pittsburgh, by David L. Clark (1864–1939), an Irish-born candy salesman. In 1921, Clark Brothers Chewing Gum Company was spun off as a separate corporation. ...

, marketed another sports-themed caramel variety, the Mario Bun, honoring

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

star,

Mario Lemieux Mario Lemieux (; ; born October 5, 1965) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player. He played parts of 17 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Pittsburgh Penguins between 1984 and 2006, and he assumed ownership of the f ...

. Clark also produced a Reggie! Bar, this time with

peanut butter Peanut butter is a food paste or spread made from ground, dry-roasted peanuts. It commonly contains additional ingredients that modify the taste or texture, such as salt, sweeteners, or emulsifiers. Peanut butter is consumed in many countri ...

filling. Wayne Candies went bankrupt and the Fort Wayne facility making Bun Bars permanently closed in the aftermath of the 1995 fraud-induced collapse of Pittsburgh Food & Beverage. The assets of Wayne Candies and Clark were together purchased by the newly formed Clark Bar America, and production of Bun Bars was moved to Clark's suburban-

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

facility. Clark sold the brand to Pearson's in 1998. Pearson's acquired Bun Bars partially due to the similarities in manufacturing the Bun and their own Nut Goodie. While the two products are very similar, they still have recipe and ingredient differences that make each unique. Bun Bars have one of three flavored centers (

maple ''Acer'' () is a genus of trees and shrubs commonly known as maples. The genus is placed in the family Sapindaceae.Stevens, P. F. (2001 onwards). Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. Version 9, June 2008 nd more or less continuously updated since http ...

vanilla Vanilla is a spice derived from orchids of the genus ''Vanilla (genus), Vanilla'', primarily obtained from pods of the Mexican species, flat-leaved vanilla (''Vanilla planifolia, V. planifolia''). Pollination is required to make the p ...

, or sea salt caramel) covered in unsalted

peanut The peanut (''Arachis hypogaea''), also known as the groundnut, goober (US), pindar (US) or monkey nut (UK), is a legume crop grown mainly for its edible Seed, seeds. It is widely grown in the tropics and subtropics, important to both small ...

s and

milk chocolate Milk chocolate is a solid chocolate confectionery containing cocoa, sugar and milk. Chocolate was originally sold and consumed as a beverage in pre-Columbian times, and upon its introduction to Western Europe. Major milk chocolate producers incl ...

. When first bought by Pearson's in 1998, maple and vanilla flavors were available, and later caramel was added to the line up. In 2015, the caramel flavor was changed to sea salt caramel.

References

External links

Pearson's Candy CompanyCandy Blog review
{{Pearson's Candy Company Chocolate bars Pearson's Candy Company brands