Candy bars are nearly always covered in chocolate with a variable sugar filling, though the original Hershey's Chocolate Bar is composed solely of chocolate, with no fillings.

Candy bars emerged in the late nineteenth century as a method of neatly packaging and selling chocolate in a solid form. In the modern era, Mars, Incorporated, Nestle and Hershey's dominate the candy bar marketplace.

During the first world war, the United States Army asked American chocolate manufacturers to package chocolate into large blocks to be shipped and easily distributed among the troops. According to the National Confectioners Association, the manufacturers started splitting up the chocolate slabs into smaller portions, which U.S. soldiers enjoyed and requested upon returning from war. In this way, the candy bar industry was created by popular demand.

• Cooking.com: The Candy Bar Cookbook