The Jelly Belly jelly bean is the most popular brand of jelly bean sold today. The company, formerly the Goelitz Candy Company, sells nearly 35 million pounds every Easter. The Jelly Belly Company is not the inventor of the jelly bean, however, they are a huge part of the jelly bean's history. They are the company that first put flavor into the candy. Jelly Belly boasts fifty official flavors and hundreds of strange and unique flavors. Some of which you wouldn't believe people eat. Just check out this link.
No one really knows who created the jelly bean. Historians believe a form of jelly bean was first enjoyed in Biblical times. It is hard to imagine Moses, Ramses and Nefertiti, enjoying a bowl full of jelly beans, though stranger beliefs have come from history.
*1700's
Jelly beans have been associated with a candy developed in 1777, in Istanbul, Turkey, called Turkish Delights. The candy was soft and jellied in the middle with a slightly hard coating. Today's process to create the soft middle and hard covering, is difficult and time consuming. It takes between 6-10 days to make one batch of jelly beans due to the several processes of sugar coating and drying the candy into perfection. Even with the technology we have today, several days are needed to coat the candy in sugar. 24-48 hours are needed for them to dry. After that, another coating is added, and another day to dry.
*1860's
During the late 1800's, Boston Candy Maker, William Schraft, becomes the first company to market their version of the jelly bean for mass production. Schraft highly advertised his giving away the candies to the Union Soldiers during the Civil War in an effort to self promote. The candies, made mostly of sugar, were an excellent moral and energy booster for the war-weary soldiers, as well as a nonperishable candy that could be stored in their pockets. On some days, it was all they had to eat.
*1900's
During the early 1900's, jelly beans were the ideal penny candy. You could buy a bag full of the sugary confections for a penny. Jelly beans were the first sweet to be sold by weight and in bulk. A hundred years later, the same bag can cost you over five dollars or more. Of course today's jelly beans taste better and we have a huge variety of flavors to choose from.
Jelly beans were first given out at Easter in the 1930's. Since both Spring and eggs are thought to signify rebirth, Easter was the perfect time of year, and the Easter Bunny was just the character to deliver them to children. Since they are mostly made of sugar and corn syrup, kids and adults loved them.
Before Jelly Belly created their many colors and flavors, the jelly bean was an uncolored, unflavored, soft centered chewy candy. Its flavor was simply sugar. Even though Jelly Belly didn't create the jelly bean, they sure did make history by making the necessary additions to make jelly beans one of the most sold candies world wide. Over 14 billion were sold last year alone.
Despite the fact that jelly beans may have been around for thousands of years, flavor was not added until 1976. The most popular flavor being Very Cherry, the most controversial being Buttered Popcorn. The tasty rookie flavor this year, is the healthy Pomegranate. The strangest flavor ever sold is called Skunk Spray. The history of jelly beans is as diverse and flavorful as the candy itself.