The mints are produced by Tootsie Roll Industries, and packaged in varying amounts from the so-called 'fun-size box' to the much larger 12 oz.

Charles Vaughan (1901–1995), a veteran food chemist and one of the pioneers of pan chocolate, invented both Junior Mints and Sugar Babies for the James O. Welch Company.

His partner in the company was his brother, Robert W. Welch, Jr., who retired from the confectionery business in 1956 and two years later founded the John Birch Society.

[3] The name of the product is a pun on Sally Benson's Junior Miss, a collection of her stories from The New Yorker, which were adapted by Jerome Chodorov and Joseph Fields into a successful play.

According to one past official company history, when James Welch developed and launched the product in 1949, he named the candy after his favorite Broadway show.