Over 700 million Peeps are sold each year. The candy inspires a cult following, giving impetus to diorama contests and fan websites.

The company website supplies a history of the firm. Russian born Samuel Born immigrated to the United States from France in 1910, already trained in the art of chocolate making. In 1912, Sam Born invented the Born Sucker Machine, a machine for automatically inserting sticks into lollipops. In 1916, Sam Born was awarded the “key to the city” of San Francisco for the invention. Lollipops were very popular in California at the time.

In 1923, Sam Born opened a small chocolate shop in Brooklyn, N.Y. His chocolate was made fresh every day and he would put a sign “Just Born” in the window when a new batch of chocolates was ready. That’s how the company became “Just Born,” and inspired its early logo, which was a baby in a candy scale.

Soon after he opened his store, Born invited two family members, his brothers-in-law Jack and Irv Shaffer, to become his business partners. At the time of his death in 1996, Jack Shaffer was 94 years old and had not yet retired. He celebrated 70 years with the company shortly before his passing.

As the company grew, Sam Born invented new products. He created chocolate jimmies and a chocolate that is used as a hard coating on ice cream. In 1930, James Bartholomew operated the new machine that produced the chocolate sprinkles. Born decided to name the product after his worker calling them “Jimmies.’”

Just Born was doing so well it eventually outgrew its New York headquarters. The company moved to an empty printing factory in Bethlehem in 1932 due to the good rail connections there. The price of land was reasonable, and the railroad made receiving ingredients and shipping candy convenient. There was a good labor force available, as large groups of new immigrants were attracted to Bethlehem because of the many manufacturing mills.

Just Born acquired the candy company Maillard, which made upscale candies, in 1935.

Next, Born produced two new candies Mike and Ike (1940) and Hot Tamales (1950). Hot Tamales were an invention of Sam Born’s son, Bob. He needed a use for leftover licorice and thought of adding cinnamon to it. Bob Born was president of the company for 40 years.

In 1953, Just Born acquired the Rodda Candy Company of Lancaster, Pa. Although Rodda was best known for its jellybeans, it also made a small line of marshmallow products. They made a Peep by hand-squeezing marshmallow through pastry tubes. The marshmallow chicks took 27 hours to make, and the eyes had to be painted on individually by hand. Bob Born helped to mechanize the marshmallow-forming process, and Just Born has become the world’s largest manufacturer of marshmallow treats. It now takes six minutes per Peep.

Just Born created Jolly Joes, a grape flavored candy, in 1960. Two years later the company put out a spearmint candy named Cool Kids. The flavors were expanded to include Strawbana for strawberry and banana, Lem and Mel for lemon and watermelon, Cherri and Bubb, for cherry and bubble gum and Root-T-Toot, a root beer-flavored chewy candy. At this time, the company decided to halt production of chocolate candies to focus entirely on non-chocolate and marshmallow confections.

In the 1980s, the company focused on advertising campaigns that would bring their candy to national attention. One such effort was putting sample boxes of their fruit candies inside General Mills’ sweet Cocoa Puffs cereal.

They began producing marshmallow shaped candies for other seasons during the year, such as Christmas and Halloween. President Ronald Reagan’s passion for jellybeans helped sell their Teenee Beanees, in 35 flavors. Just Born sent the former president a Waterford crystal decanter filled with his favorite jellybeans for his desk in the Oval Office and kept refilling it during Reagan’s White House years.

Carl Lewis, 1984 Olympic medal winner, said he lived entirely on a diet of Peeps during the summer Olympic trials.

Just Born continues to be a family owned business. In 1992 Sam Born’s grandson Ross Born and nephew David Shaffer became the co-CEOs. In 1997, Mike and Ikes became the top selling candy for the company. Then in 1999 Just Born released television advertising for Peeps for the very first time. Lavender, blue and flavored Peeps were produced during the 1990s.

In 2009, Just Born joined Artsquest to create the Peeps Fest, four days of activities leading up to New Year’s Eve when the giant Peep drops. Just Born employs, about 450 people, at its plant in Bethlehem.

Through the three generations the Borns and the Shaffers have generously supported the Bethlehem community.