Editor’s word, April 4, 2026, 6 am ET: This story was final up to date on March 30, 2018, and we’re revisiting it for this Easter.
Easter season is upon us, and in case you’re like a majority of People who have fun the vacation, you’ll most likely buy some sweet for the event. And that stash will seemingly embrace the neon-sugar-coated hallmark of the season: Peeps.
However whereas their blobby shapes and brilliant colours are simply recognizable, their backstory won’t be so acquainted — or as easy as you’d assume. Learn on to search out out extra about these squishy harbingers of spring.
Mmm, sugar-coated marshmallows with eyes
Of their conventional kind, Peeps are formed like child chickens and fabricated from a gentle marshmallow rolled in coloured sugar, with eyes fabricated from edible wax. They’re sometimes offered in packs of 5 conjoined marshmallows. One serving of Peeps (5 items) comprises 140 energy, no fats, and 34 grams of sugar, which is smart since their two most important components are sugar and corn syrup. Peeps additionally include gelatin, which makes them unsuitable for vegans.
Peeps are manufactured by the Bethlehem, Pennsylvania-based Simply Born sweet firm, which was based in 1910 by a Russian immigrant named Sam Born and likewise manufactures such trick-or-treating offenses as Mike & Ikes and Sizzling Tamales.
Based on Simply Born’s firm historical past, Born is to thank for a number of confectionary feats we now take with no consideration, together with producing chocolate sprinkles and that sort of chocolate sauce that hardens right into a crunchy shell when it hits ice cream; he additionally invented a machine to place sticks into lollipops, with out which our nationwide lollipop sport could be sadly poor.
In 1953, Simply Born purchased the Rodda sweet firm, which was based mostly in close by Lancaster and produced jelly beans in addition to a line of handmade, chick-shaped marshmallows. Born’s son Bob Born discovered the way to mechanize the marshmallow creation course of, which shortened the manufacturing time from almost 27 hours to 6 minutes. (Bob additionally ditched the wings that was once piped onto every Peep, which additional streamlined the method.)
Not only for Easter anymore
Very like that different tooth-achingly candy seasonal deal with sweet corn, Peeps have expanded past their authentic restricted availability to turn into a year-round candy. They arrive in several colours (blue, pink, lavender), flavors (cotton sweet, gingerbread, “lemon delight,” chocolate-covered, sweet cane), and shapes — Peeps bunnies have been launched within the Eighties, and now the road contains hearts, pumpkins, Minions, and extra.
However the authentic yellow chicks (whose taste is solely “sugar”) are nonetheless the most well-liked, and the sweet continues to be mostly related to Easter. The web site WalletHub estimates that greater than 1.5 billion Peeps are eaten each Easter.
Nonetheless, Peeps are slightly divisive. Whereas they’ve their die-hard followers, many others dedicate an astonishing quantity of power to railing in opposition to them. Take, as an illustration, the 2012 Guardian article “Sorry, however Peeps are disgusting,” or the Fb teams devoted to Peep hate. Angela Hill of the Oakland Tribune finds them unsettling:
I dislike them intensely. They usually understand it, which merely bolsters their resolve. I can see it of their beady little food-colored eyes — their defiance, their sheer pluck. You may’t get only one Peep, you understand, and that’s no accident. They arrive in packs. One would possibly even say, battalions.
After which there’s this vivid description of consuming a Peep, courtesy of the Dallas Observer: “It’s like consuming a tablespoon of sugar lovingly dusted atop a mouthful of your gramma’s cellulite.”
Peeps are as versatile as their taste is one-note. Should you’re a Peep purist, you possibly can simply eat them straight from the bundle — both recent or stale and barely crunchy, as some folks desire. (Matthew Pye, Simply Born’s VP of commerce relations and company affairs, informed HuffPost that 70 to 75 % of individuals desire “recent” Peeps, which nonetheless leaves a large portion of Peep eaters who choose to devour them on the crunchier facet of the sell-by date.) Should you’re of authorized ingesting age, you would pair them with wine or beer.
If you wish to get inventive, Peeps-centric recipes abound, from the comparatively innocuous (Peeps Krispies treats) to the flowery (a Peeps sunflower cake) to the straight-up revolting (“Peepza“ — actually simply Peeps on a pizza — and ”Peepshi,” a Willy Wonka fever dream whereby fake sushi is constructed from Peeps, Nerds, Fruit by the Foot, and so on.). Momofuku Milk Bar’s Christina Tosi suggests skewering them to roast over a fireplace or flattening them and drying them within the oven to make “Peep chips.”
However in case you’d slightly not eat them in any respect, you possibly can nonetheless experiment with Peeps within the identify of science. One time-honored custom is to place them within the microwave to see what occurs. (Spoiler alert: They get huge. Like, actually huge.) This observe has additionally led to the unique sport often known as Peep jousting:
In 1999, Emory College researchers Gary Falcon and James Zimring carried out maybe probably the most exhaustive Peeps testing in human historical past, exploring the candies’ sturdiness within the face of a wide range of substances. Based on the Emory Report:
To check Peep solubility, they started with easy faucet water, then moved on to boiling water, then to acetone, sulfuric acid and sodium hydroxide, however have been left dumbfounded by Peeps’ obvious invulnerability to every.
Then they tried Phenol, a protein-dissolving solvent deadly to people in quantities as small as a single gram. Peeps proved mortal to such a substance — nicely, virtually. One hour after plunging an unlucky Peep into its grisly demise, all that remained within the beaker was a pair of brown carnauba wax eyes floating in a purple Phenol soup.
Should you’re extra of a right-brained soul, you would possibly think about using the confections to create a creative masterpiece. In 2006, the Washington Submit launched an annual “Peep Present” diorama contest, asking entrants to create a 3D scene by which all of the characters are Peeps. The competition generally drew a number of hundred individuals, whose submissions ranged from a Peep van Gogh to a Peepified scene from the film Up. (You may see previous winners of the diorama contest right here.) The competitors was such a cult favourite that when in 2017 the Submit determined to discontinue it, the high-quality of us at Washington Metropolis Paper took it upon themselves to maintain the custom going. (You may see the winners of 2018’s contest on-line, together with an ode to the 12 months’s Finest Image winner titled “The Form of Sugar.”)
However the Submit wasn’t even the primary newspaper to carry a Peeps contest — that honor goes to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, whose workers author Richard Chin dreamed up the competitors in 2004. And the New Yorker argues that the custom of sugar-based dioramas goes again a lot additional, to the seventeenth century:
By the early Renaissance, ingenious European courtroom confectioners have been crafting elaborate sculptures for particular meals, typically designed to echo or praise the themes of the musical or theatrical entertainments that might accompany a banquet. These is also allegorical in nature, depicting spiritual scenes or commemorating army victories. On the marriage ceremony of Maria de Medici to Henri IV, in Florence, in 1600, the groom was not in attendance, however he was represented by a formidable sugar sculpture depicting him on horseback.
In a much less, uh, suave contest, in 2016 Maryland’s Nationwide Harbor hosted the primary World Peeps Consuming Championship. The winner, Matt Stonie of San Jose, took dwelling $3,500 for consuming a formidable (or disturbing) 200 Peeps in 5 minutes.
Issues have soured a bit for the sugary sweet these days. Lately, Peep-maker Simply Born has been mired in a sticky authorized battle with its union workforce over the corporate’s longtime pension plan. This fascinating Washington Submit article goes into it in depth (and is price studying in full in case you’ve made it this far into an article about Peeps), however I’ll clarify it briefly right here.
Simply Born has what’s referred to as a multiemployer pension program, which permits workers enrolled in this system to maneuver amongst taking part corporations and carry their advantages with them. In 2016, citing rising labor prices, Simply Born tried to bar all new workers from becoming a member of the pension plan, funneling them to the 401(ok) program as a substitute whereas sidestepping a $60 million payment required by federal legislation to make the transfer. The union employees went on strike (adopting the totally excellent chant “No justice, no Peeps!”); the strike got here to a messy finish 4 weeks later after a number of employees crossed the picket line and the remaining finally went again to work for concern of shedding their jobs.
Then the tangled authorized bit started. Per the Submit:
The pension, which is run by a bunch of labor officers and company executives from the 200 taking part corporations, has sued the corporate, alleging it improperly tried to cease enrolling new workers within the pension with out paying the withdrawal payment. The corporate has sued the union, demanding “financial damages” and alleging the strike was unlawful.
The end result of the case may have huge ramifications for corporations with multiemployer pension applications and the almost 10 million American employees these applications cowl. If Simply Born manages to get out of that $60 million payment, different corporations may observe in its footsteps, placing the advantages payouts for hundreds of thousands of American works unsure.
Once more, the Submit article is price studying in full — however relaxation assured that regardless of the corporate’s authorized troubles, you don’t want to begin stockpiling Peeps simply but.
The place do Peeps fall within the Easter sweet hierarchy?
The web site Ranker maintains a fluctuating checklist of the highest Easter candies, which confusingly contains each “chocolate-covered marshmallow Peeps” and “bunny Peeps” as separate gadgets. Nonetheless, that checklist additionally considers the unholy monstrosities often known as Jordan almonds and thus have to be discounted totally.
However just one Easter sweet has the excellence of that includes within the premiere of the controversial Roseanne revival, whose first episode sees most important character (and famous Trump supporter) Roseanne Conner chowing down on some Peeps for breakfast. Which, no matter your politics, looks like a dangerous transfer from a dietary and dental well being perspective.
Replace, April 4, 2026, 6 am ET: This text was initially revealed on March 30, 2018, and up to date to mirror up to date data the place obtainable.
