Tags
bars, candy, chocolate, cookie, Food, Hershey, Mars Company, PB Max, peanut butter, square
PB Max (Mars Inc., 1989)
PB Max was a candy bar created and produced by the Mars Company (which makes Mars bars, Twix, Snickers, M&Ms, among others), PB Max was creamy peanut butter that sat atop a square-shaped whole grain cookie, covered with milk chocolate and cookie crumbles. PB Max was designed to compete with Hershey’s Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups. PB Max were sold as single bars or in a box of 6 bars. PB Max performed well, but the discontinuation of PB Max is definitely strange.
PB Max had brought in $50 million, yet Mars Inc. discontinued the candy bar sometime between 1992 and 1994. Why? According to a former Mars executive, PB Max was discontinued because of “the Mars family’s distaste for peanut butter.” What? PB Max lovers have tried (in vain) to change Mars’ mind with petitions over the years (some are still active).
I guess Hershey can rest easy, they will never have peanut butter competition from Mars.
PB Max fans, make sure to scroll down to take a look at the comments. You have a chance to bring PB Max back!
Walk Memory Lane 
******ATTENTION******* FELLOW PB MAX FANS: The good people at Iconic Candy: https://www.facebook.com/IconicCandy are going to RETURN the PB Max Bar exactly as it was but they need your help. Here are some of their questions: 1. Describe the whole grain cookie as best you are able, How thick was the cookie? 2. What was on top of the peanut butter before the chocolate, was it pieces of the cookie, oats from the cookie or peanuts? 3. Dimensions of the bar, was it actually square. 4. Does anyone have an original wrapper (we can measure the inside). 5. Any descriptive information, requests or advice would be appreciated.
Thank you so much Ken for commenting. I posted an update for you. Hopefully PB Max fans will get in touch with you. Good luck. When PB Max comes back on the market, let me know and I will post a new update 🙂
Pb max was my favorite growing up. I was so mad that they discontinued this product. In my opinion it’s the best peanut butter candy ever and because they don’t like peanut butter it’s discontinued, ridiculous !!! If it ever comes back I’m stocking up like it’s the end of the world !
I remembered being disappointed when I tried PB Max, as the peanut butter within just wasn’t what I hoped it would be. It didn’t taste quite like a jar of JIF, nor did it taste like a Reese’s, and the flavors didn’t complement each other very well. I bought it once, then never again.
As to why it was discontinued, I have a hard time believing that a candy company would cancel a successful product merely because the executives are prejudiced against one of the ingredients. It’s more likely that after the initial public curiosity created by the commercial campaign, demand eased off. I do remember folks saying that the white, square packaging resembled that of a certain feminine sanitary product of the day, and the fact that it had “Max” in the name didn’t help. I wonder if that had anything to do with its demise?