M&M’s Is Adding a Fun New Flavor to Its Ice Cream Sandwich Lineup
Its release is timed to coincide with National Peanut Butter Day.
If you love peanut butter, there are plenty of ways to incorporate it into your daily life, whether you’re upgrading a PB&J or baking a homemade dessert. Now there’s a new option in the freezer aisle at your local grocery store, too: Mars has announced the release of the new M&M’s Peanut Butter Ice Cream Cookie Sandwich.
The 3.5-ounce frozen treat features two sugar cookies studded with M&M’s Minis hugging a slab of peanut-butter-flavored, reduced-fat ice cream — and it’ll be sold both as an individually wrapped dessert or in a box of four. The product will debut on January 24, which is National Peanut Butter Day.
M&M’s ice cream sandwiches have been around for years, but this is the first time a peanut butter variety will become available. Other flavors currently available include Vanilla, Chocolate, and Cookies & Cream. A Mint Chocolate variety was also available as a limited-time promotion around St. Patrick’s Day in 2021.
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It’s surprising that it took Mars so many years to release a Peanut Butter flavor, since both Peanut and Peanut Butter M&M’s are consistently among the brand’s top sellers. The motivation for releasing this flavor in 2025 appears to be catering to demographics of a certain age.
“Peanut butter is the Gen Z and millennial flavor of choice when it comes to ice cream pairings,” Mars ice cream marketing director Chanel Gant said in a statement. “With this new creation, we’re bringing that beloved flavor to the freezer aisle in a way that perfectly matches their cravings.”
Bringing the product to market in two different formats — single-serve and 4-pack — is also a strategy suited to the times. The individual portion lets consumers impulse-purchase the product as a “little treat,” whereas the multipack catches adults and parents doing their bulk shopping for the entire household. The Vanilla variety even comes in a 12-pack, providing more options for a widespread consumer base.
The product is also described in the press release as a “multi-texture flavor experience” that “combines the crunch of M&M’S Milk Chocolate Minis, the melt-in-your-mouth sweetness of ‘home-baked’ style sugar cookies and the rich, creamy goodness of 100% real peanut butter ice cream.” This emphasis on varying textures has been a rising industry trend ever since Gen Z gained spending power; it’s the same reason that Hostess introduced Kazbars snack cakes in 2023, featuring chocolate cake and a creamy center studded with crunchy candies. “We know that consumers are craving multitextured snacks,” a Hostess spokesperson said in the press release at the time.
And, of course, there’s the never-fail combination of salty and sweet that peanut butter delivers. While other candy and confection trends come and go, it’s hard to imagine that tempering sweetness with a bit of savory flavor will ever fall out of fashion. Is there any wonder that there’s a National Peanut Butter Day to begin with?
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