This photo provided by Just Born shows Ira “Bob” Born. Born, a candy company executive known as the “Father of Peeps” for mechanizing the process to make marshmallow chicks, died peacefully on Sunday, Jan. 29, 2023. He was 98. (Just Born via AP)

Ira “Bob” Born, a candy company executive known as the “Father of Peeps” for mechanizing the process to make the marshmallow chicks, has died. He was 98. Born’s father, Sam Born, was a Russian immigrant who founded Just Born Quality Confections, a small candy company, in 1923. The family later moved to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Bob Born served in the U.S. Navy during World War II before joining the family business. In the early 1950s, he came up with a machine that mechanized the process for making marshmallow chicks, reducing the time to make them from 27 hours to six minutes.