Mentos facts for kids
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| Type | Scotch mints |
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| Owner | Perfetti Van Melle |
| Country | Netherlands |
| Introduced | 1932 |
| Markets | Worldwide |
| Previous owners | Van Melle NV |
| Tagline | "Can't Say No To Mentos" |
Mentos are a popular brand of chewy candies. They are known for their slightly hard outside and soft, chewy inside. You can find Mentos in many stores and vending machines around the world.
Mentos were first made in 1932. Today, the Italian-Dutch company Perfetti Van Melle sells them in over 130 countries. These candies are small and round, like a flattened ball.
Most Mentos come in rolls with 14 candies. Some special kinds, like "Sour Mix," have 11 candies per roll. You can also find smaller packs with 4 to 6 candies. In some countries, Mentos are sold in boxes. The current slogan for Mentos is "Stay Fresh." Before that, in the 1980s and 1990s, the slogan was "The Freshmaker."
Contents
What are Mentos Made Of?
Mentos candies are made with different ingredients depending on their flavor.
Mint Mentos Ingredients
Mint-flavored Mentos contain sugar, glucose syrup (from wheat), and coconut oil. They also have rice starch, natural flavors, and gum arabic. Other ingredients include sucrose esters of fatty acids, gellan gum, carnauba wax, and beeswax.
Fruit Mentos Ingredients
Fruit-flavored Mentos also have sugar, glucose syrup, and coconut oil. They include citric acid and fruit juices from concentrates (like strawberry, orange, and lemon). Other ingredients are rice starch, gum arabic, natural flavors, sucrose esters of fatty acids, gellan gum, carnauba wax, and beeswax. Natural colors like beta-carotene and beetroot red give them their bright look.
The exact recipe for Mentos can be a little different depending on where they are made.
Mentos Flavors Around the World
Mentos come in many exciting flavors! You can find classic flavors like mint, mixed fruit, cola, and bubble gum. There are also rolls with a mix of orange, strawberry, and lemon.
Original and Special Flavors
The very first Mentos candy was liquorice-flavored. You can still buy "Drop Mentos" (liquorice) in the Netherlands. New flavors are often tested in the Netherlands and Europe first. But many of these flavors are now sold all over the world.
Other popular flavors include green apple, cinnamon, grape, and wintergreen. Some unique flavors are grapefruit, peach, plum, and even strawberry yogurt. There are also flavors like pineapple, red apple, and currant.
Unique Regional Flavors
In the Netherlands, you can find "Mentos Strong" and "Air action Mentos" (mint flavors). They also have a "Special Mix 4 pack" with flavors like mint, fruit, berry mix, strawberry, banana, cherry, and mango orange. In China, there are "Mint" and "Strong Mint" options. Asia also offers Grape and 'N Cream flavors, like Strawberry 'N Cream.
Did you know Chocolate Mentos were made in 1989? They were stopped in most places but are still available in some Asian countries. In Japan, you might find citrus mango. The Philippines has a "Dalandan Fresh" flavor.
Other Mentos Products
Mentos also makes chewing gum in many flavors. This gum is sold in countries like Germany, Australia, and the United States. In the Netherlands, Mentos Gum comes in different types like Pure, Fruit, and Bubblegum.
In 2005, some sugar-free Mentos were introduced, sweetened with sucralose. These include "mixed berries" and "cool mint" flavors. In the Netherlands, mint, licorice, and fruit flavors are also available without sugar.
Mentos in the UK and Greece
In the UK, you can find Fruit, Mint, Rainbow, Spearmint, and Tutti-Frutti (bubblegum) rolls. The Rainbow roll has flavors like strawberry, apple, raspberry, orange, watermelon, blueberry, and pink grapefruit.
Greece is a big fan of Mentos! They have Mint, Strawberry, Melon, Watermelon, and Fruit flavors. They even have "Energy" Mentos, where one roll has as much caffeine as two cups of coffee.
Mini Mentos and Mentos Teens
Mini Mentos are smaller than regular Mentos. In the Netherlands, you can find Mini Mentos Fruitmix (orange, lemon, strawberry, apple) and Mini Mentos Yoghurt (strawberry, raspberry, blueberry yogurt). There's also Mentos KIDZ, a bag of small boxes with tiny candies in flavors like strawberry, orange, lemon, apple, and blueberry.
In Brazil and Latin America, you might see "Mentos Teens." These are tiny Mentos, similar in size to Skittles. They come in mixed flavors like white grape, lemon, strawberry, orange, raspberry, and cherry. During the 2014 FIFA World Cup, a special Brazilian team Mentos was released with green apple and orange flavors.
Some countries also have "Mentos Ice" candy in flavors like cherry, green apple, and grape. Japan has its own special flavors like Ume, Fuji apple, and Pine Fresh (pineapple).
Mentos Commercials and Fun
Mentos became very popular in the US and Canada because of its fun TV commercials. These ads started in the early 1990s. In the commercials, people would face small problems in their daily lives. Then, they would eat a Mentos and suddenly come up with a creative, often funny, way to solve their problem.
For example, someone might sit on a freshly painted bench and stain their suit. After eating a Mentos, they would roll around on the bench to make cool pinstripes on their suit! These commercials were so memorable that they were even made fun of in other TV shows and music videos.
Mentos and Soda Geysers
Have you ever seen a Mentos and soda geyser? It's when you drop Mentos into a carbonated liquid like a soft drink, and it causes a huge spray! This cool reaction was first shown publicly in 1999 and became super famous with a video in 2006.
Why Does it Happen?
Scientists have studied why this happens. The rough surface of a Mentos candy is the main reason for the eruption. This rough surface has many tiny holes. These holes create lots of places for carbon dioxide (CO2) bubbles to form very quickly. When you drop the Mentos into soda, all these bubbles rush out at once, creating a powerful "geyser" or "fountain."
The ingredients in diet soda, like aspartame, also help. They lower the surface tension of the liquid, which means the bubbles can form and escape more easily. This makes the geyser even bigger!
World Records
People have even set world records for Mentos and soda geysers! In 2010, in the Philippines, 2,865 geysers went off at the same time. This record was broken in Mexico in 2014, with 4,334 Mentos and soda fountains erupting together.
These geysers can shoot as high as 6 meters (about 20 feet)! On the TV show MythBusters, they even made a geyser go over 34 feet high using a special nozzle.
See also
In Spanish: Mentos para niños
