13 min read
18 DISCONTINUED M&M’S FLAVORS YOU FORGOT ABOUT
Mars has retired at least 18 M&M’s flavors since the early 1980s, and three colors besides. Most were built to disappear. Crunchy Mint launched with an 18-month expiration date printed in its own press release, three flavors existed only to lose a fan vote, and Caramel Apple was never sold in America at all. It was a Japan-only candy.
LIST OF DISCONTINUED M&M’S FLAVORS
| Flavor | Sold | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| M&M’s Royals | Early 1980s | Mint line, dropped |
| Tan M&M’s (color) | Late 1940s–1995 | Lost a color vote to blue |
| Crispy M&M’s | 1999–2005, 2015–2022 | Replaced by Crunchy Cookie |
| Dulce de Leche | 2001–2003 | Five-city test flopped |
| M&M’s Premiums | 2008 | Shell-less luxury line |
| Strawberried Peanut Butter | 2009 | Transformers movie tie-in |
| Dark Chocolate Raspberry | 2012–2014 | Limited edition |
| White Chocolate Carrot Cake | 2013 | Easter, Walmart only |
| White Chocolate Candy Corn | 2014 | Halloween only |
| Caramel Apple | 2015 | Sold only in Japan |
| White Strawberry Shortcake | 2016 | Target exclusive |
| Chili Nut | 2016 | Lost the Flavor Vote |
| Crunchy Mint | 2018–2020 | Won a vote, 18-month run |
| Jalapeño Peanut | 2019 | Lost the Flavor Vote |
| Thai Coconut Peanut | 2019 | Lost the Flavor Vote |
| Toffee Peanut | 2019 | Won the vote, then left |
| Fudge Brownie | 2020–2024 | Cut in April 2024 |
| Milk Chocolate Honey Graham | 2022 | Easter only |
M&M’S ROYALS
Discontinued: Early 1980s
M&M’s Royals launched with mint flavors and pale green and brown coloring. The candies used crown symbols instead of the traditional “M” logo. Mars Inc. positioned them with the slogan “Now chocolate’s got a whisper of mint,” but its premium positioning failed to resonate.
TAN M&M’S
Discontinued: 1995
Tan M&M’s ended when Mars let consumers vote on whether blue, pink, or purple would be the replacement color.
Blue won with 54% of more than 10 million votes, phoned in to 1-800-FUN-COLOR. Tan had been in the bag since the late 1940s, when it replaced violet.
DISCONTINUED M&M’S COLORS
Mars has pulled three colors from the regular M&M’s bag: violet, red, and tan. Only red came back to stay.
| Color | Years | Why it left |
|---|---|---|
| Violet | 1941–late 1940s | Replaced by tan |
| Red | Pulled 1976–1987 | Red Dye No. 2 scare |
| Tan | Late 1940s–1995 | Lost the vote to blue |
Violet was one of the five original 1941 colors, alongside red, yellow, green, and brown, according to M&M’s history as Wikipedia records it.
Red’s disappearance is the stranger story. In 1976 the FDA banned Red Dye No. 2, and Mars pulled red M&M’s even though they never contained that dye. They were colored with Red Nos. 3 and 40, but Mars feared shoppers wouldn’t believe it. Orange took red’s place. The same scare cleared cherry candy and red licorice off shelves across the country.
A University of Tennessee student named Paul Hethmon started the Society for the Restoration and Preservation of Red M&M’s in 1982, with 99-cent memberships. Red returned in 1987. Mars sent Hethmon 50 pounds of them.
CRISPY M&M’S
Discontinued: 2005 and again in 2022
Crispy M&M’s debuted in 1999, featuring rice-based wafer centers that made them slightly larger than regular M&M’s. Mars discontinued them in the US in 2005 and upset a hardcore group of fans. They remained available in Europe and Australia during the US absence.
Crispy M&M’s returned to the US in 2015 and were discontinued again in 2022, when Mars made room for Crunchy Cookie.
DULCE DE LECHE M&M’S
Discontinued: 2003
Dulce de Leche M&M’s launched in July 2001 in five markets with large Hispanic populations: Los Angeles, San Diego, Miami, San Antonio, and McAllen-Brownsville, Texas. The shoppers Mars was courting preferred the M&M’s they already knew. By early 2003, Dulce de Leche was gone from most of those stores.
M&M’S PREMIUMS
Launched: August 2008
M&M’s Premiums were a luxury M&M’s line in five flavors: chocolate almond, mint chocolate, mocha, raspberry almond, and triple chocolate. They had no candy shell, only a shiny marbled topcoat, and sold in an upright window box at $3.99 for 6 ounces. “We’ve actually changed the recipe of M&M’s as America and the world knows it,” a Mars spokesman told The New York Times at launch.
Arch-rival Hershey swung and missed on formats of its own, from chocolate slices called Swoops to the Olympic-branded Hershey’s Gold bar.
STRAWBERRIED PEANUT BUTTER M&M’S
Discontinued: 2009
Strawberried Peanut Butter M&M’s launched in May 2009 as a tie-in with “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” combining peanut butter with strawberry flavor under the shell. Mars sold them from May through July only. The candy was never meant to outlast the movie.
DARK CHOCOLATE RASPBERRY M&M’S
Discontinued: 2014
Dark Chocolate Raspberry M&M’s combined dark chocolate base with raspberry flavoring and arrived in 2012 alongside Dark Chocolate Mint. The mint survived. The raspberry was gone within two years.
WHITE CHOCOLATE CANDY CORN M&M’S
Discontinued: 2014
White Chocolate Candy Corn M&M’s were launched as Halloween exclusives with white chocolate and candy corn flavoring. Mars discontinued the candy, and candy corn M&M’s of any kind are missing from the 2026 Halloween lineup, which leans on Pumpkin Pie instead. Seasonal exclusives vanish fast across the candy aisle—Tic Tac’s summer editions lasted a single season too.
CARAMEL APPLE M&M’S
Discontinued: 2015 (Japan only)
Caramel Apple M&M’s were never sold in the United States. Mars Japan announced the flavor in March 2015 as a limited edition. It went on sale nationwide in Japan that April 6 in 37-gram bags priced at ¥100. Mars described Caramel Apple as a tribute to a popular American sweet, the caramel-dipped whole apple. The red, green, and pink candies included a pink shell color made only for this flavor.
WHITE STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE M&M’S
Discontinued: 2016
White Strawberry Shortcake M&M’s were launched exclusively at Target in January 2016, featuring white chocolate infused with strawberry flavor. They stayed a Target exclusive and have not returned.
CHILI NUT M&M’S
Discontinued: 2016
Chili Nut M&M’s lost the 2016 Flavor Vote, the contest Mars ran for M&M’s 75th anniversary. Chili Nut, Honey Nut, and Coffee Nut shared shelves that spring while fans voted, and more than a million votes later Coffee Nut won. Chili Nut and Honey Nut went away when the vote closed.
CRUNCHY MINT M&M’S
Discontinued: 2020
Crunchy Mint M&M’s won the 2018 Flavor Vote over Crunchy Espresso and Crunchy Raspberry, and it was built to leave. The winner, dark chocolate with a cocoa rice crisp center under a mint candy shell, arrived in August 2018 with an end date attached. Mars’s own announcement said it would sell “for 18 months while supplies last.”
“Our fans have spoken,” M&M’s brand director Allison Miazga-Bedrick said at the time. The flavor they picked came with an expiration date.
JALAPEÑO PEANUT M&M’S
Discontinued: 2019
Jalapeño Peanut M&M’s entered Mars’ 2019 flavor competition, where consumers voted on new varieties. The spicy-sweet combination lost to English Toffee Peanut, joining the pile of experimental Skittles flavors Mars has walked away from. Spicy candy rarely sticks: Jolly Rancher’s Hotties Mix, which paired watermelon with cayenne, lasted only two years.
THAI COCONUT PEANUT M&M’S
Discontinued: 2019
Thai Coconut Peanut M&M’s were the third finalist in the 2019 “internationally inspired” Flavor Vote, alongside Mexican Jalapeño Peanut and English Toffee Peanut. Thai Coconut lost. Coconut M&M’s are not part of the current US lineup.
TOFFEE PEANUT M&M’S
Discontinued: 2019
Toffee Peanut M&M’s won the 2019 International Flavor Competition. They featured toffee with salty peanuts. Winning earned English Toffee Peanut a national rollout in August 2019, not a permanent spot. It is no longer part of the US M&M’s lineup.
FUDGE BROWNIE M&M’S
Discontinued: April 2024
Fudge Brownie M&M’s ran from 2020 to 2024. They were formulated with fudgy, chewy, brownie-flavored centers designed to replicate the taste of homemade brownies. They were popular but were discontinued for unknown reasons—the same quiet exit Mars gave several Twix varieties.
MILK CHOCOLATE HONEY GRAHAM M&M’S
Discontinued: 2022
Milk Chocolate Honey Graham M&M’s appeared as 2022 Easter candy with honey graham-infused rice crispies, resembling the texture of Toblerone.
WHITE CHOCOLATE CARROT CAKE M&M’S
Discontinued: 2013
White Chocolate Carrot Cake M&M’s were an Easter 2013 flavor sold only at Walmart, and only at some Walmarts. Reviewers who found a bag that March described light orange, green, and beige shells over white chocolate with a cinnamon-and-nutmeg edge.
WHY WERE M&M’S CANCELLED?
M&M’s were never cancelled. In January 2023 Mars paused the spokescandies, the cartoon characters in its ads, after a year of cable-news mockery over a redesign that swapped the green M&M’s go-go boots for sneakers. The candy itself never left stores.
Mars announced the pause on January 23, 2023, in a statement that read, in part: “We weren’t sure if anyone would notice. And we definitely didn’t think it would break the internet. But now we get it — even a candy’s shoes can be polarizing.” Maya Rudolph became the brand’s “Chief of Fun.”
The “indefinite” pause lasted three weeks. Red, Yellow, and the rest returned in M&M’s Super Bowl ad on February 12, 2023, where the story resolved “with the characters right where they belong.” Talking M&M’s characters have fronted the brand’s advertising since 1954.
DISCONTINUED M&M’S FAQ
Are mint M&M’s discontinued?
Crunchy Mint M&M’s are discontinued. Mars sold them from August 2018 for a planned 18-month run. Dark Chocolate Mint M&M’s, launched in 2012, are still sold and still appear on M&M’s own flavor list. Anyone missing the crunch has to settle for the plain dark chocolate mint version.
Are peanut butter M&M’s discontinued?
No. Peanut Butter M&M’s are still a core flavor, and so are Almond, Dark Chocolate, Dark Chocolate Peanut, and Pretzel. All five appear on M&M’s own US flavor list. The permanent lineup rarely loses a flavor. Nearly every entry on this list was a limited edition, a store exclusive, or a vote finalist.
What two colors of M&M’s are being discontinued?
Blue and brown are missing from Mars’s naturally dyed M&M’s, sold first on Amazon. Mars has not made spirulina work as a blue, and brown depends on blue dye too. Regular bags keep all six colors. Mars says it will add the missing colors once it finds “fully effective, scalable solutions.”
Will M&M’s bring back a discontinued flavor?
Sometimes. Crispy M&M’s came back in 2015 after a decade away, and Mars ran a new Flavor Vote in 2026, its first in seven years. The three bakery finalists were Peanut Butter Cinnamon Roll, Cherry Chocolate Cupcake, and Lemon Meringue Pie. Mars promised the winner a limited fall run, not a permanent spot.
