This is not a drill.

M&Ms have been filled with plenty of things in their 75-year history but Mars has kept one of chocolate’s most popular companions away from its popular shelled-chocolate for years — until now.

Earlier this week, Mars announced a new addition to the M&Ms line — a creamy caramel centre covered in milk chocolate, decked out in a signature colourful shell. They’re calling it, what else but, M&Ms Caramel. The company says caramel will have a “mass appeal ... as caramel is both traditional and trendy”.

With the new creamier centre, M&Ms is introducing a fourth taste-sensation category for the popular treat: soft and chewy. Others include crispy with pretzel, smooth with milk and dark chocolate, and nutty with the ever popular Peanut M&Ms. The company has experimented with limited edition flavours in the past — like mint, coffee and chilli nut — but not the fillings. It’s calling the caramel addition one of the biggest launches in the brand’s history.

“It was a big technological challenge for us,” Hank Izzo, vice president of research and development of parent company Mars Chocolate, told CNN. “We never before had a M&M lentil with a true soft centre, so we had to figure out how to not make the chocolate too sticky or too soft that it could collapse.”

Mars is certainly onto something big because as soon as news of the new item broke, the masses reacted with enthusiasm and rabid excitement.

Caramel M&M’s are expected to hit the US market in May 2017. Mars Australia has been contacted to confirm a local release date.