When was the first pez dispenser

While these were the most popular type of PEZ dispenser, still being made today, the product is actually much older than that. Source: Pintrest. The name of the sweets came from the German word for peppermint, pfeffermintz.

However, it also doubled as an anti-smoking campaign. The push for people to eat PEZ instead of smoking a cigarette was a real one. In that year, the first U. So, in an attempt to draw children to the brand, PEZ came up with the idea to create fruity flavored versions and cute, character-themed dispensers. The idea worked. In no time, children and adults alike were in love with PEZ. And since then, the character-themed dispensers have really taken off!

Today, there are countless different PEZ dispensers to choose from, and ten different candy flavors available. There really is a PEZ for everybody. So with a single satisfying click of any PEZ dispenser, you can feel good knowing that the candy in your mouth is really much closer to home than you would expect.

Whether PEZ have actually discouraged smoking is debatable. But PEZ still exist today as beloved […]. At five-times the cost of a normal candy bar, they sold poorly. Assembly would have to be mechanized; cost to manufacture would need to be reduced. PEZ adjusted again and created a new toy-like dispenser that struck a balance between the original regulars and the character designs: a character head on top, and a rectangular body that held the candy underneath.

The first PEZ dispenser with this anatomy was a witch introduced at Halloween in The next year, the company struck gold with its first licensing deal for a Popeye dispenser.

With a combination of licensing deals and original designs, PEZ climbed to its status as a pop-culture icon. The factory now manufactures all PEZ candies for the U. Dispensers are manufactured in Hungary, China and Vietnam. A PEZ container is about as pedestrian as you can get. Haas died in , leaving behind a candy empire. A few years later, PEZ dispensers were modified to include feet at the base to help the dispensers stand when on display.

The presence or lack of feet now demarcates modern versus vintage dispensers for collectors, who held their first PEZ convention in Ohio in Ohio PEZ conventions have continued annually ever since, and more conventions have popped up around the world, allowing collectors to celebrate their shared hobby, show off their most coveted items and sell their spares.

In , Elvis Pressley dispensers were offered and in the first Star Wars dispensers were released. PEZ dispenser collecting grew in popularity in the early s and the first-ever PEZ collectors convention was held in Mentor, Ohio in Collectors from the U.

Most of the PEZ distributed today comes from a factory in Orange, CT, which was built in that produces 12 million tablets of PEZ every day and uses 50, pounds of sugar every 4 days. Together with the location in Traun, Austria it produces 70 million dispensers and five billion candies per year. In , the company opened a PEZ visitor center at its CT headquarters that features the most comprehensive collection of PEZ memorabilia in the world.

Some Pez dispensers can sell for large amounts as collectibles. The making of a PEZ animated film was announced in with a possible release date of , but no mention of the film has been made since