Bamba () is a snack made of peanut-butter-flavored puffed maize manufactured by the Osem corporation in Kiryat Gat, Israel. Bamba is one of the leading snack foods produced and sold in Israel. It has been marketed since 1964 with no decline in sales. Bamba makes up 25% of the Israeli snack market. Similar products from other domestic manufacturers include "Parpar" (Literally "Butterfly", Telma, since 2000 a subsidiary of Unilever) and "Shush" (Strauss-Elite). Osem named the snack "Bamba" because it sounded like baby talk. Overview Bamba is made from peanut-butter-flavored puffed maize. Bamba contains no preservatives or food coloring, is enriched with several vitamins, and contains high amounts of fat and salt. The energy content is 240 calories per 28 grams. Bamba is certified kosher by Badatz Jerusalem. The Washington Post describes it as "Cheez Doodles without the cheese." Manufacturing process Corn grits are "popped" under high pressure, turning them into long lines of white, puffed, unflavored Bamba. The lines are cut into nuggets and then moved to a drying chamber where they are air-baked for 20 seconds, which gives them a crispy texture. The peanut butter, imported from Argentina, is added at the end. A worker stands on a step above the rotating drums and pours a pitcher of liquid peanut butter into each of the containers. As the drums turn, the nuggets are coated. The hot Bamba is then moved along a conveyor belt to cool before packaging. Variations In 1964, Bamba was trialed with a cheese flavor but proved unpopular and was dropped. Osem quickly changed tack and launched Bamba in different flavors, including corn, grill, caraway and peanut butter, which became the mainstay of Bamba. Nowadays, Osem also produces strawberry-flavored Bamba (officially called 'Sweet Bamba' , and unofficially 'Red Bamba' ) that is round in shape instead of oblong, and red instead of the usual color. It was originally colored with an artificial red dye, which has since been replaced with beetroot. In 2008 Osem introduced a new Bamba flavor, nougat-filled, produced at the Osem plant in Sderot. It is considered by the Nestlé group, owner of the controlling interest in Osem, to be one of the great successes of Nestlé in Israel. Osem introduced a halva-filled and a chocolate-filled Bamba in 2010, and a "Bamba-filled Bamba" (a peanut-butter-paste filled Bamba) in 2013. In 2014 Osem introduced a special edition of Bamba and their other popular snack