Mars Snacking's Ethel M Chocolates is entering the 2026 holiday gifting window with nine limited-edition SKUs and a flagship-store experiential program, positioning the 45-year-old small-batch brand squarely against the premium-confection segment ahead of its highest-volume daypart of the year.
The Collection
The 2026 Holiday Collection spans a wide price ladder — from a $5 Peanut Brittle Bar at the accessible entry point to an $80 limited-edition 24-piece Advent Calendar at the top — giving wholesale and gifting buyers a range of price points to work across channel formats. Key LTOs include the Baker's Collection Satin Crèmes ($36, 12-piece), a Holiday Favorites Sampler ($18, 5-piece), collectible embossed Cactus and Holly Tins starting at $45 in 16- and 32-piece configurations, a Holiday Luxe Library tablet-bar gift set starting at $9.50, and a Gourmet Hot Chocolate in a sapphire-blue tin priced at $30. Custom chocolate boxes and tins round out the assortment, starting at $40. All products are formulated with no flavors or colors from artificial sources — a clean-label positioning increasingly relevant to corporate gifting buyers and specialty retail buyers alike.
"For this year's collection, we've brought together the artistry of small-batch chocolate-making and the flavors of the season to create thoughtful gifts that make holiday moments feel truly special," said Mark Mackey, Chief Chocolatier at Ethel M Chocolates. The lineup is available now online and in stores beginning November 2.
Flagship Experience
The brand's Henderson, Nevada flagship anchors an experiential retail play that runs November through early January. The 33rd Annual Holiday Cactus Garden Lights illuminate a three-acre botanical garden with more than one million lights from November 5, 2026, through January 3, 2027. A tasting-room program — five seasonal chocolates paired with wines for guests 21-and-over — runs concurrently through January 1, 2027, with reservations drawing front-of-line garden admission. A new Santa Express Pass upsell adds a paid fast-pass layer to the consumer experience, a mechanism increasingly common in experiential foodservice and hospitality activations.
The experiential strategy reflects a broader trend in premium confection and specialty food: operators and brands using destination retail to build brand equity and drive full-price sell-through, rather than competing on shelf price alone. For Mars Snacking, the Henderson flagship functions as a live test kitchen and brand-building vehicle for a label that otherwise lacks the national brick-and-mortar footprint of its parent's larger confection portfolio.
Buyers sourcing premium gifting product for hotel amenity programs, corporate accounts, or upscale food-and-beverage retail should note that the custom box and tin program gives procurement teams a configurable option without requiring a bespoke manufacturing run — a practical advantage in a compressed holiday procurement cycle. For more context on premium confection trends shaping the gifting season, operators can review recent category coverage, and buyers navigating corporate gifting channel strategy may also find relevant data in our specialty food retail coverage.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
