Hey, peep these Peeps facts!

• Up until the 1950s, Rodda Candy Company was a small manufacturer in Pennsylvania best known for its signature Easter candy: hand-formed, hand-colored yellow baby chicks made out of marshmallow and sugar. In 1953, a Russian immigrant named Sam Born bought the company and changed its name to Just Born—playing off his name while also hoping to suggest that the candies were fresh. One of his first acts as owner of the candy company was to do away with the handmade chicks and introduce automation. Peeps were born.

• It once took 27 hours total for each yellow chick to be created. Today, a production facility in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, produces four million a day at a rate of about one every five seconds.

• Chicks were the only Easter Peeps until 1973, when the company introduced bunnies. The company stayed with just yellow animals until 1995, when it launched pink and white chicks and bunnies.

• A Peep’s nutritional makeup: 32 calories and eight grams of sugar. As sugar as about 4 calories a gram, that means a Peep is made up almost entirely of sugar.

• In the last 10 years, Just Born has launched an aggressive product extension line for their signature candy. You can now buy Peeps Lip Balm, Peeps Nail Polish, and even, oddly enough Peeps Halloween costumes. There’s even a line of Peeps flavored-milk now.

• Peeps are available in other shapes for other holidays (pumpkins for Halloween, for example), but they remain the most popular Easter candy sold…well, at least the most popular that isn’t chocolate. (Although chocolate-flavored peeps are available, too.)