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Before Life Savers, its founder Clarence Crane started a chocolate company in April 1891 where he sold handmade chocolate candy in Cleveland.
After encountering a popular chocolate during a trip to Victoria, British Columbia in 1910, he tried to obtain franchise rights, but when they declined, he started selling his own version under the name “Queen Victoria Chocolates” soon after.
His new branded chocolates proved successful and he was able to expand to major cities likes New York City and Kansas City by 1921—laying the groundwork for his future business ventures in candy.
In 1912, Clarence Crane invented Life Savers.
It was one of the first heat-resistant “summer candies” on the market.
Pep-O-Mint was his first flavor introduced, but its uniqueness came from the candy’s iconic ring shape that was created using a modified pill-making machine.
Looking to focus more on his chocolate business, Crane sold the Life Savers trademark and business to Edward J. Noble and J. Roy Allen for $2,900 in 1913.
The new owners switched the packaging from cardboard tubes to tin-foil wrappers to maintain the candy’s freshness.
They also established the Mint Products Company in NYC to sell Life Savers.
The new owners came up with a great new slogan for their marketing campaign for Life Savers: “Still only 5 cents.”
They also positioned the candy near cash registers and encouraged store owners to include nickels in customers’ change to promote sales.
The strategy worked wonders for sales and helped it become a favorite treat for children with limited cash.
The five-cent price point became synonymous with the candy itself for many years.
In 1921, Life Savers introduced fruit flavors to the mix—Lemon, Lime, and Orange—which were marketed as “fruit drops with the hole”.
By 1927 they would add Cherry and additional flavors like anise, butter rum, cola, root beer, butter rum would be rotated from time to time.
The Five Flavors roll that featured the fruity combination of lemon, lime, orange, cherry, and pineapple was launched by Life Savers in 1935.
During World War II, Life Savers was kept in production due to the generosity of other candy companies donating their sugar rations.
This was because Life Savers was helping with the wartime effort.
The U.S. military included roughly 23 million boxes of Life Savers in soldiers’ ration kits.
In 1956, Life Savers Corporation merged with Beech-Nut Packing Company to form Beech-Nut Life Savers.
In 1968, Beech-Nut Life Savers merged with pharmaceutical giant E.R. Squibb & Sons to form Squibb Beech-Nut Corporation—creating a diverse consumer goods and pharmaceutical company.
Nabisco acquired only the Life Savers division from E.R. Squibb Corporation in 1981.
Creme Savers was introduced by Nabisco in 1996.
It became a hard candy known for its creamy flavors, like strawberry and orange cream.
In 2000, Philip Morris (owner of Kraft Foods) acquired Nabisco Holdings for $19.2 billion, creating the world’s largest food company.
The acquisition gained iconic brands like Oreos and Life Savers.
Life Savers launched Life Savers Gummies in 1992 with three varieties: Grape, Five Flavor, and Mixed Berry.
It was the first time the brand dipped its toes into soft candy.
The Life Savers Five Flavors roll made a big change in 2003 when raspberry and watermelon flavors were introduced to replace lemon and lime.
Orange was also briefly substituted with blackberry, but consumers were not happy, so they added reintroduced orange back into the mix.
In November 2004, Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company purchased Life Savers, along with Altoids and Creme Savers, from Kraft Foods for $1.48 billion in an all-cash transaction that represented 2.4 times the estimated 2004 sales.
Most recently, Mars, Incorporated acquired Wrigley in 2008, where the Life Savers brand remains to this day.
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