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.

Food & Wine / Mars Inc

Food & Wine / Mars Inc

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.

Related: From Bundled Deals to Bigger Snacks: How America Ate in 2024

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.”

Food & Wine / Mars Inc M&M'S Peanut Butter Ice Cream Cookie Sandwich debuts on National Peanut Butter Day, January 24, and it will be available in a single-serve portion and a four-pack box.

Food & Wine / Mars Inc

M&M'S Peanut Butter Ice Cream Cookie Sandwich debuts on National Peanut Butter Day, January 24, and it will be available in a single-serve portion and a four-pack box.

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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