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Discontinued Foods We Wished They Would Bring Back
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Apr 1, 2025
Weird History Food is gonna make you nostalgic for some discontinued foods that we'd all want back. The food and beverage industry is a tricky one. For something that's so essential to human life - eating and drinking - it's still difficult to create and market a successful product. That's to be expected. Eating and drinking are highly personal acts, and creating a product that appeals to millions of people takes exhaustive work.
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The food and beverage industry is a tricky one. Yes, occasionally, a company will beat the odds
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and introduce a new product that connects with the public, but most don't. That being said
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just because a new edible or potable doesn't connect with enough people to earn a profit
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doesn't mean it didn't connect with anyone. So today, we're going to take a look at some
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discontinued foods we wish they would bring back. Okay, time to take a party bus to the
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Flavor Graveyard. Or would that be the Flavyard? Have you ever wished your crispity, crunchity
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peanut buttery Butterfinger was shaped more like ammunition and easier to choke on
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Nestle answered your weirdly specific prayers back in 1992 when they unleashed Butterfinger
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BBs. BBs were essentially just round, bite-sized versions of its popular candy bar. At the time
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Bart Simpson was the animated spokesperson for Butterfinger, so the company teamed up with the
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Simpsons again to create a memorable marketing campaign for the new bite-sized candy. Butterfinger
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BBs remained on shelves until Nestle mysteriously discontinued them in 2006. They've never provided
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an explanation for the product's unceremonious retirement, but one often-cited theory is that
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the candy's low melting point made them messy to eat. Hey, it's candy. It's supposed to be messy
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Believe it or not, Girl Scouts have been selling Girl Scout cookies since 1917
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Over the years, cookie flavors have come and gone, and sadly, they do not take suggestions
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We have tried. One of the more recent offerings was called the Thanks-A-Lot
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This particular treat was a shortbread cookie dipped in chocolate and stamped with a message
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Thank You. They were a perfect thank you gift for people who like shortbread cookies dipped in chocolate
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and for people who like to eat thank you notes. Thanks-A-Lots were introduced in 2006 and discontinued in 2021
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They were replaced by the French toast-flavored Toastiers, which, in all fairness, sounds like
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a decent trade. Reportedly, the only flavors safe from retirement are Thin Mints, Do-Si-Dos, and Trefoils
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They're like the Justice League of Girl Scout cookies. Every other flavor is fair game
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According to the Girl Scouts themselves, the most popular cookie they sell is the Thin Mint
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But if you're a lemon lover, odds are your favorite was the Lemon Chalet Cream
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Debuting in 1990, these cookies were featured at the Girl Scout International World Center
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in Switzerland, hence the chalet theme. High up, high on the mountain, we've found it, oh, chalet
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They're real big on chalets there. The original versions were rectangular vanilla and cinnamon flavored cookies with lemon cream filling
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But the lemon chalets were reduced in size in 2009 before being replaced the following year by Savannah Smiles
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which were themselves discontinued in 2019 Huh probably not smiling now For fans of Altoids the UK curiously strong mints Altoids Sours were a must
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But no one else really cared for them, evidently. Because even though this candy spinoff, which debuted in 2004, hit the market in five flavors
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raspberry, lime, apple, tangerine, and mango, it only stayed around until 2010
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Huh, mango? There's your first mistake. Altoids' parent company has gone on the record to confirm that it discontinued the sour candies
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due to low customer demand. The moral of the story? People love Curiously Strong
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Curiously Sour? Not so much. The Frito-Lay snack company first released Doritos in 1964
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And back then, they were just unflavored corn chips. The company merged with Pepsi-Cola to create PepsiCo two years later
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and took the brand nationwide. But it wasn't until Frito-Lay introduced taco-flavored Doritos in 1967
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that they became a bestseller. Since then, the company has released more than 100 varieties of the chips
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Note seriously, they're like Barbies with this thing. The following decade, PepsiCo entered the restaurant business in a big way
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purchasing Pizza Hut in 1977, Taco Bell in 1978, and KFC in 1986
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In the early 1990s, with snack sales declining, the company tried creating a little brand synergy by releasing two restaurant-themed flavors
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Pizza Craver Doritos and Taco Supreme Doritos. inspired by Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, respectively
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When PepsiCo spun off its restaurant division in 1997, the flavors were renamed simply Taco and Pizza
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And since then, presumably because you can't have too much of a good thing, Frito-Lay has released several other varieties inspired by tacos and pizza
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Meanwhile, in 2012, Taco Bell teamed up with Doritos to release the Doritos Locos Tacos
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So, anyone want to take a guess how long it will take for them to release a bag of Doritos Locos Tacos-slavered Doritos
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For all intents and purposes, Lifesaver holes were to Lifesavers what donut holes are to donuts
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The concept was simple. Small, flavored candies that complement the popular Lifesavers
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which was owned by Nabisco when the holes were introduced in 1990. But despite the best laid plans, in January 1991, the fruity candies were recalled in connection with a possible choking hazard
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You probably think that some kid choked on one, because Lifesavers holes were the ideal size for that
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but the hazard actually came from the plastic flip-top caps on the candy's packaging
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Four children chewing on the caps allegedly gagged, although none were injured
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Lifesaver's holes did eventually reappear on shelves with improved packaging, but the moment had passed. They were discontinued for good by the mid-1990s
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In all likelihood nostalgia for this particular flavor of Ben Jerry ice cream has more to do with people admiration for the 1998 Saturday Night Live sketch that inspired it than it does with affection for the flavor itself
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In case you haven't seen it, that sketch is about a man named Jack Schwetty who goes on to a national public radio show to plug his bakery's signature creation, Schwetty Balls
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No one can resist my Schwetty Balls. Hey, they can't all be the Coneheads
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Most of the time, the Coneheads weren't even the Coneheads. The Ben & Jerry's flavor that paid tribute to the sketch offered up
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vanilla ice cream with a hint of rum and loaded with fudge-covered rum balls and milk chocolate melt balls
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The flavor was actually a limited holiday season release in 2011, and when the ice cream drew criticism from protest groups like One Million Moms
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which claims to stand against the immorality, violence, vulgarity, and profanity the entertainment media is throwing at our children
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the Vermont-based ice cream maker resigned it to the flavor graveyard. And we're not being metaphorical here
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Ben & Jerry's actually keeps a virtual graveyard for discontinued flavors. Somebody needs to raid that tomb
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And while we're on the topic of Ben & Jerry's, true to its countercultural roots
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one of the artis ice cream maker's earliest flavors was named after the famed Woodstock MC
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Wavy Gravy, whose real name was Hugh Romney. Totally get why he went with Wavy Gravy
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Nobody buys tickets to see Hugh Romney. Mostly we're just going to try and be groovy and spread that grooviness to everybody
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The Wavy Gravy ice cream flavor combined a Brazil nut flavored ice cream with chocolate hazelnut fudge swirl, caramel, cashews and roasted almonds
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You apparently had to add your own gravy. Company co-founder Ben Cohen first pitched the flavor to Mr. Gravy in 1991 and it became an official flavor in 1993
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But when the large British-Dutch corporation Unilever acquired Ben & Jerry's in 2003, it discontinued Wavy Gravy
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claiming the flavor was too expensive to produce. Drag, man. Nabisco has been making buttery crackers under the Ritz brand since 1934
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But in 2002, the company tried an interesting variation on the decades-old formula
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by offering a graham cracker sandwich cookie filled with marshmallow and fudge
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otherwise known as s'mores. And because the only thing better than eating s'mores
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is eating s'mores without having to waste all that time making them, by 2004, the Ritz Bits s'mores were hit
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Although they were discontinued in 2016, Ritz revived them in 2022 for a limited edition
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giveaway on social media. Come on guys, don't make us say it
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We want s'more! Ah Crystal Pepsi the only transparent soda endorsed by Van Halen as a fairly high flop It actually probably the first discontinued flavor that comes to most people minds The idea for the soda was simple What if Pepsi could replicate its signature flavor in a clear beverage Now why they thought that was a thing people wanted is a mystery
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Not to mention that consumers had been trained for about a century to associate the cola flavor
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with the color brown by companies like Pepsi. But there was also the small problem that it
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didn't really taste like Pepsi, but it was caffeine-free. Adding insult to injury, Coca-Cola
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released a deliberately bad competitor, Tab Clear, with the goal of creating brand confusion and
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sabotaging the market for clear cola beverages. It was underhanded, but all's fair in big soda
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Crystal Pepsi was on store shelves for just two years, from 1992 to 1994
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before retiring as a national memory. The original 7-Up Soda debuted in 1920 and was originally brewed with something called
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Lithium Citrate. The FDA nixed that ingredient in 1948 and today it's used in psychiatric treatment
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Lithium is a cool title for a Nirvana song, but not necessarily the kind of thing most people are
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looking for in a soft drink. From then on, the beverage carved out a niche in the soft drink
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market by differentiating itself from the Cokes, Pepsis, and Dr. Peppers of the world
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Unlike those murky sodas, 7-Up was clear, crisp, citrus-flavored, and had no caffeine
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7-Up merged with Dr. Pepper in 1986, and in doing so, acquired all of the good doctor's recipes
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One of those was a caramel-colored drink that tasted something like ginger ale with hints of cinnamon and apple
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Oh, and loads of caffeine! Basically, all the things that were the exact opposite of what had made 7-Up a success
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The boldly named 7-Up Gold stayed on the market for just two years, from 1987 to 1989
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enough time for exactly two Lethal Weapon movies. It performed so badly that it negatively affected the sales of a genuinely successful 7-Up spinoff, 7-Up Cherry
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Do you know how hard you have to work to not sell cherry soda? You remember Frito-Lay, right
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Well, Cheetos have existed for so long. When they were first created, Frito and Lay were still separate companies
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Invented in 1948 by Charles Doolin, the original version of the Cheeto was a crunchy cheese-flavored dried snack with a sophisticated
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little hyphen in its name. The softer version of Cheetos, the Cheeto Puff, didn't debut until 1970
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and those were the only two varieties of Cheetos for the next 20 years. But the world called out
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for more, and in 1990, Frito-Lay debuted Cheetos Paws, whose consistency was somewhere in between
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the crunchy and soft variety of Cheeto. Initially, Paws only lasted until 1993, but the company
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decided to bring them back in 2017
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