Friday Fun – Happy Peepster! (It’s YUUUGE!)

[NOTE: Sorry – it's a particularly long one]

This year marks the Washington Post’s Tenth Anniversary of its “Peeps Diorama Contest” – which always occurs the week before Easter.  So let’s take a delightful trip down memory lane, while learning some new Friday Fun Facts.

When I started doing my background research for “Friday Fun” I decided that learning about Peeps was actually more interesting.  We’ll get to the contest, but the first question that needed answering was which came first – the Marshmallow or the Peeps?

Or how do we get from here …

  – to –

Going back to the very beginning, it all started in 1953 when Sam Born bought the Rodda Candy Company in Lancaster, PA. 

Mr. Born was born and raised in Russia, but moved to America in 1910.  He settled in New York City where he made handcrafted chocolate confections and founded his candy company, Just Born.

Born was an inventive soul who was actually awarded by San Francisco the “Key to the City” for his invention of the process to insert sticks into lollipops.

He bought the Rodda Candy Company primarily for their jelly beans – but serendipitously learned that they made a marshmallowy treat once a year they called a Peep.  It was made only at Easter time because it took them TWENTY-SEVEN HOURS, from start-to-finish, to handcraft just ONE Peep using a pastry tube.

Apparently his son, Bob, inherited Sam’s inventive gene because Bob Born created “The Depositor” which formed the Peeps and so was able to cut the TWENTY-SEVEN HOURS down to just SIX MINUTES!

So let’s take a Step-by-Step tour of how those little Peeps are “Born”.

Step One: Mixing and Whipping

It begins when the ingredients – sugar, corn syrup, gelatin, vanilla (or other flavorings), coloring and potassium sorbate (a preservative) – are whipped into a marshmallowy goo.  There’s also a soupçon of carnauba wax – but more on that in a bit.

Step Two: Coloring the Sugar Coating

In a giant culinary “cement mixer”, food coloring is sprayed by that little arm outside the barrel on to the sugar inside, and thoroughly mixed to a uniform color.

Step Three: Sugar Loaded on to Conveyor Belt

Sugar is loaded into a spreader (the gray piece in the background) by hand, and the spreader distributes the colored sugar across the conveyor belt.

Step Four: Peeps Are Made by “The Depositor”

No photos are allowed of the machinery that actually pumps the marshmallow into the various shapes. That's Bob’s Top Secret – but it has not changed much since the 1950’s.  (Although there was a recent redesign in the past year or so that will expand their creative abilities.)

Step Five: Peeps Coated with Sugar in a Wind Tunnel

Freshly made Peeps, while warm, travel along the sugar-covered conveyor belt (backwards!) into a wind tunnel.  Here air is blown in to whip the sugar around so that it sticks evenly to every … AND

Step Six: Recycling the Sugar

The sugar-coated candy Peeps slide off a solid conveyor belt on to a grated one that lets extra sugar fall through so it can be recycled.

Step Seven: The “Eyes are Dotted”

This machine dots the Peeps with those tiny creepy peepers, which are actually tiny dots of carnauba wax.  

Carnauba wax is a non-toxic edible wax that’s also found in some shoe polishes, car waxes and many other candies.  And that “Eye Dotter” machine can pump out 3,800 eyes per minute.

Step Eight: Peeps Get Packaged

The last part of their conveyor-belt ride takes the Peeps through a refrigerated area so they can firm up enough to easily fall off the conveyor belt and into boxes. Peep Chicks come five to a box, while bunnies are four per box.

FUN FACTS ABOUT PEEPS

• Just Born produces almost TWO BILLION Peeps every year, an average of over 5.5 million Peeps each day.
• That’s enough Peeps produced in one year to circle the earth twice.
• In the late 1950’s PEEPS wings were “clipped” to give them a sleek, modern look.

• PEEPS have been the #1 non-chocolate choice of Easter candy for over two decades
• Yellow and white PEEPS chicks and bunnies came first, followed by pink, lavender, blue, green and orange
• PEEPS are available year-round, and come in a variety of shapes celebrating different Holidays:

• Easter = Bunnies, Eggs &Tulips
• Halloween = Pumpkins & Ghosts
• Christmas = Trees, Snowman, Reindeers, Snowflakes & Stockings
• Valentines = Hearts, Teddy Bears & "I LOVE YOU"

• There have been numerous new variations:

• Chocolate covered PEEPS came out in 2010
• Cake-flavored Peeps hit the market in 2014
• They even come in a Milk form and as Lip Gloss
• And they now come in multiple flavors, including strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, sweet lemonade, candy cane, and orange crème

• If you stood 8,000 Peeps bunnies nose-to-tail, they would reach the top of the Willis (Sears) Tower in Chicago.
• In 1999, a pair of scientists at Emory University decided to see if the Urban Legend that Peeps are truly indestructible.  So they subjected them to a microwave, boiling water, acetone, and diluted sulfuric acid and sodium hydroxide.  The Peeps survived them all!  But when they upped the ante with some Phenol, the only things that didn’t disappear were the carnauba wax eyes – they remained!

• On New Year’s Eve, Bethlehem, PA (where Just Born moved to) drops a giant PEEP, that changes through all the Peep colors during its descent, at midnight.

• And amazingly enough, Peeps are NOT Just Born’s top seller!  That title belongs to “Mike & Ike” (which I’ve never even heard of)!

 

No, I didn’t forget about the inspiration for the Peep background – Washington Post’s Peeps Diorama Contest celebrating its Tenth Anniversary!

About the only rules are all the characters must be some type of Peep; it can’t be larger than 3 feet wide by 2 feet deep by 2 feet tall; and it must be able to be carried by one person. 

The 2016 Grand Prize Winner (which is selected by the WaPo staff) will receive a $500 American Express gift card.  Four runner-up winners will receive a $100 American Express gift card.  

There will be a Contest between the previous winners and this year’s in a Tournament of Peeps Champions.  That person will receive a $200 American Express gift card.

So let’s get to the 2016 Grand Winner – but hold on to your hats, and get your Barf Bags out, because this year’s winner – in a LANDSLIDE, garnering more votes than the other 1,000+ entries combined – is none other than Herr Drumpf:

 

T]his satirical take on the Republican candidate’s brain — seen as a command center like the one in the 2015 Pixar film “Inside Out” — was a yuuuge winner, garnering more votes than all the other entries combined.  It depicts a moment during the Aug. 6 Fox News Republican debate, as Trump is looking at moderator and nemesis Megyn Kelly.

Between the characters Fear and Disgust, an Anger Peep is poised to press a large red button, while Joy and Sadness are corralled behind a fence. Portraits of former wives Marla Maples and Ivana Trump adorn the interior, which has been trimmed in marble and gold.

Eldridge sculpted and painted the head, which was topped with blond hair extensions. “Leslie spent 12 hours staring at pictures of Trump,” Baker says. “She gave up her time and her sanity.”

But let’s visit the winner for each year leading up to the Tenth Anniversary:

2007: Peeps are a Girl’s Best Friend |

2008: The Tomb of King Peepankhamun

2009: NightPeeps

2010: EEP [Up]

2011: Chilean Mine Rescue

2012: OccuPeep D.C.

2013: Peeps Mourn Their Peeps: Twinkie, Rest in Peeps

2014: I Have a Dream: Martin Luther King Jr. Addresses the Peeple

[NOTE: So far, this is the leading contender for the “Tournament of Peeps Champions”

2015: Hidden Peeps

[NOTE: To appreciate this one, visit its 360-degree site because the Peeps are actually cleverly hidden]

RESOURCES:

There were really too many to try and do ALL hyperlinks, so I’ll put the most useful ones here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/peeps/

Peeps! In 180-degree glory

http://www.justborn.com/get-to-know-us/our-history

http://mentalfloss.com/article/56283/20-delicious-facts-about-peeps

http://mashable.com/2015/03/31/how-peeps-are-made/#IFSh9ABWDZqE

[NOTE: Above uses LOTS of Flash, so slow to open]

http://wnep.com/2014/04/18/16-facts-about-peeps/

 

Happy Peepster!