Peanut research at the University of Georgia in Tifton has had a direct impact on the world’s top selling candy, Peanuts M&M’s. Back in 2005, Mars, the manufacturer of M&M’s, were receiving some complaints about the taste of the Peanut M&M’s, it wasn’t exactly like they thought it should be.
The Mars officials agreed, they said disease and environmental issues such as droughts and hurricanes were affecting the peanut crops, and only about 1 in 100 peanuts was deemed suitable for a Peanut M&M. So Mars M&M’s team, with leading peanut researchers at the University of Georgia, developed a more resilient peanut that would stay fresher longer. So in 2014, the International Peanut Genome Initiative, chaired by the UGA’s Scott Jackson, successfully sequenced the peanut genome, adding in the breeding of more productive and more resilient peanut varieties.
The result came out of a group of multinational crop geneticists who worked in tandem for several years, Mars M&M’s was among those that helped finance the research. So this week, M&M’s has released a short documentary about it, it’s on the internet, and you can find out from exactly what happened in protecting the peanut and making it more resilient.
Audio Reporting by Tyron Spearman for Southeast AgNet.