The Idaho Spud Bar: America's Most Underrated Coconut Candy Bar

If you've never had an Idaho Spud Bar, you've been missing one of the most distinctive coconut candy bars ever made. It doesn't look like much — it's shaped like a small potato, which is intentional — but the combination of flavors and textures inside has kept people coming back since 1918.

What's in an Idaho Spud Bar?

The Idaho Spud Bar is built around a cocoa-flavored marshmallow center. That center gets coated in dark chocolate and then rolled in coconut. The result is a candy bar that's lighter than it looks — the marshmallow center gives it an airiness that denser bars don't have — with the coconut adding texture and a subtle sweetness that works perfectly against the dark chocolate.

It's not a complicated bar. It doesn't try to be. The ingredients are straightforward and the execution has been consistent for over a hundred years.

A History Worth Knowing

Idaho Candy Company was founded in 1901 by T.O. Smith, a journeyman candy maker who started selling candy door-to-door in Boise out of shoeboxes. By 1909, he had partnered with the Adams family to build a proper factory at 412 South 8th Street in Boise — at the time, the most modern building in the city, with skylights and a dedicated break room for employees.

The Idaho Spud Bar was introduced in 1918, right in that same factory. More than a century later, it's still made there. Some of the original equipment from the early 1900s is still in use.

The company has passed through four independent family ownerships over 125 years, and it's currently veteran-owned. Through all of it, the Spud Bar has remained unchanged.

Why Coconut Works So Well Here

Most coconut candy bars use coconut as a filling — something soft and sweet packed inside a chocolate shell. The Idaho Spud does the opposite. The coconut coats the outside of the bar, which means every bite has a slightly different ratio of chocolate, coconut, and marshmallow depending on where you bite in. It keeps the bar interesting from first bite to last.

The dark chocolate matters too. Milk chocolate would make the whole thing too sweet. The slight bitterness of dark chocolate is what gives the Spud its balance.

Where to Get One

The Idaho Spud Bar is available nationwide at idahospud.com. It ships fresh from the Boise factory and arrives quickly. If you haven't tried it, there's no good reason to wait.