Parent Company
Snickers – Snickers is a brand of Mars Wrigley, which is the world leader in chocolate sales. They manufacture other notable candy products such as 3 Musketeers, Doublemint Gum, M&Ms, Milky Way, and Twix. They are headquartered in McLean, Virginia.
Baby Ruth – Baby Ruth is owned by the Ferrara Candy Company based out of Chicago, Illinois. Other brands owned by Ferrara are Nerds, Butterfinger, Crunch Bar, Laffy Taffy, and more. Ferrara recently purchased Nestle’s U.S. confectionery business for $2.8 billion, which included the brands Baby Ruth, Butterfinger, Sweetarts, Fun Dip, and several other candies in its portfolio.
How They Got Their Names?
Snickers – Frank and Ethel Mars started Mars Inc. way back in the early 1900s. Their first candy bar was the Milky Way which, of course, was a major success. Building off this success, they eventually developed the Snickers bar which came out in 1930. Ethel had a favorite horse named Snickers that passed away right before Snickers debuted. The candy bar was named in remembrance of her beloved horse.
Baby Ruth – The claim of the original owner of Baby Ruth, Curtiss Candy Company, was that it was named after Ruth Cleveland who was the daughter of President Grover Cleveland. Keep in mind that the candy bar was introduced in 1920 and Cleveland was last in office in 1897 while the daughter died in 1904. However, in 1920, the baseball great Babe Ruth was 25 and in the prime of his career. It is believed that the Curtiss Candy Company did not recognize the candy bar was named after Babe Ruth to avoid having to pay him royalties.
Ingredients
The two candy bars share a few similar ingredients such as chocolate, sugar, corn syrup, milk, and salt.
Snickers – Milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, skim milk, lactose, milkfat, soy lecithin, artificial flavor), peanuts, corn syrup, sugar, sugar, milkfat, skim milk, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, lactose, salt, egg whites, chocolate, artificially flavor.
Baby Ruth – Sugar, Dry Roasted Peanuts, Corn Syrup, Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil (Palm Kernel, Coconut, and Soybean), Nonfat Milk, Cocoa, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Less Than 2% of Glycerin, Dairy Product Solids, Dextrose, Salt, Soy Lecithin, Lactic Acid Esters, Carrageenan.
Nutrition Facts
Most of us aren’t counting calories when we eat a candy bar. However, let’s take a look at the nutrition facts of each candy bar to see if there are significant differences between a Snickers vs Baby Ruth.
As you can see in the below table, the candy bars are pretty similar in regard to their nutrition facts. The saturated fat of 4.5 grams for Snickers and 7 grams for Baby Ruth is the most notably difference.
| Snicker Original | Baby Ruth | |
| Size | 1 Bar (1.86 oz) | 1 Bar (1.9 oz) |
| Calories | 250 | 260 |
| Total Fat | 12g | 12g |
| Saturated Fat | 4.5g | 7g |
| Trans Fat | 0g | 0g |
| Cholesterol | 5mg | 0mg |
| Sodium | 125mg | 130mg |
| Total Carbs | 32g | 35g |
| Dietary Fiber | 1g | 1g |
| Sugars | 28g | 26g |
| Protein | 4g | 3g |
Price
We looked at Walmart for the price of a full size candy bar for a Snickers and Baby Ruth. Both candy bars were 88 cents at our local Walmart. We also checked Kroger and the Snickers was $1.09 and the Baby Ruth was $1.00. The full sizes bars were priced relatively similar in price.
We also compared the prices of the bags of fun size candy bars. The net weight for the fun size bag of Snickers was 1 pound 4.77 ounces. The net weight for the fun size bag of Baby Ruth bars was 1.23 pounds. The price of the Snickers was $4.88 and the price of the Baby Ruth was $5.78 at Walmart. There appears to be some price variances when purchasing bags with multiple chocolate bars.
Popularity
Statista.com has data on the brands of chocolate and other candy that people in the United States eat most often. The data shows that 42.55 million people consumed Snickers in 2019 vs 15.88 million people for Baby Ruth. Snickers is undoubtedly a much more popular candy bar compared to Baby Ruth. Interestingly, the data shows that Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Kit Kat beat out Snickers with 46.75 million for Reese’s and 42.83 million for Kit Kat.
Candy Bar Structure
The major difference between the two candy bars is where the peanuts are located.
Snickers (displayed left) places the peanuts on top of the nougat. The peanuts are chopped up and rest in a bed of caramel. The nougat, caramel, and peanuts are covered in chocolate. The chocolate hides the peanuts and other ingredients so that you cannot tell what is inside just by looking at the bar.
A Baby Ruth (displayed left) has whole peanuts placed just under the outside chocolate layer. When you look at a Baby Ruth, you can see the lumps of chocolate covered peanuts. The center of a Baby Ruth is nougat similar to a Snickers with caramel encasing the nougat.
The compact ingredients of a Snickers helps keep the candy bar intact when consumed. The Baby Ruth tends to fall apart easier when bit into because of its dense outer layer of peanuts.
Featured Image Credit: Snickers – Bodo via Flickr.com, Baby Ruth – Like_the_Grand_Canyon via Flickr.com
Split Open Candy Bar Images – Both by Evan-Amos