Background Information of Previous M & M Studies

 

Background Research:

To perform research on M&M proportions, we used a search engine called Google. In the search box, we typed “M&M proportion study” and found numerous studies similar to ours. All three sites claim that they found the official M&M proportions from the M&M website. According to these websites, the proportions for each M&M color are not the same. The true proportion of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and brown M&Ms in a bag are 0.13, 0.20, 0.14, 0.16, 0.24, and 0.13 respectively.

 

 

A study by Scientific AmeriKen simply tested the proportions of M&Ms against each other. The experiment showed that proportions were not equal to those stated by the M&M website and that most did not differ substantially. According to the true proportion, the most populous color was expected to be blue; however, the study showed that green was the most populous. In fact, the expected and observed proportions of blue M&Ms differed by nine percent! Scientific AmeriKen sent a letter to the Mars company stating that the proportions given by the corporation were different than those obtained in the study. M&M responded with a letter saying that their colors proportions were chosen based on consumer preference tests and that brown is the most prevalent color because it reminds people of chocolate. For this study, the proportion of blue M&Ms was not greater than the proportion of orange M&Ms; the proportion of blue M&Ms and the proportion of red M&Ms were not equal; and the proportion of brown M&Ms and the proportion of green M&Ms were different.

Previous Study by Josh Madison

Josh Madison

Another study was performed by Josh Madison, a curious man from New York who studies random topics. In his study with M&M proportions, he used 48 bags from a single case of M&Ms to insure that they came from the same production run. Then, he counted the number of M&Ms in each package to make sure that each bag contained about the same number of candies. With a total of 2620 M&Ms, he observed that each bag contained approximately 55 M&Ms. Next, he proceeded to count the number of M&Ms of each color in each bag and found the total amount of each color. Using a statistical package, he ran a Chi-Square test for the data. The statistics can be found on his website. His analysis showed that some proportions differed from the M&M claim, while others were the same. The Mars Company stated that the most populous color is blue, but Mr. Madison’s study showed that blue was the third most populous color and that orange was the most populous. The proportions of brown, red, yellow, and orange M&Ms differed from the expected values by plus or minus two percentage points. For the purposes of our study, the proportion of blue M&Ms was not greater than the proportion of orange M&Ms; the proportion of red M&Ms was less than the proportion of blue M&Ms; and the proportion of brown M&Ms was different than the proportion of green M&Ms. Ultimately, the study proved that some proportions differed while others were the same.

 

The research on past studies relating to M&M proportions has shown us that the actual M&M proportions slightly differ from those published by the Mars Company. We have also learned that it would be beneficial to the study if M&Ms from the same production run were used. In this case, we would use only the packages from a single case to eliminate machine error. Ultimately, the proportions of each color can vary based on the research.