Is SPAM and pumpkin spice a match made in heaven?
How about Pringles and ramen?
These canned foods weren’t meant to stay on shelves forever.
Before Mario, or Master Chief, or those guys from Among Us, the early 1980s belonged to
a yellow circle that ate ghosts and went…
“Wakka wakka wakka wakka wakka.”
In the early 80s, the country was deep in the throes of "Pac-Man Fever."
This yellow circle was so popular that you could even find him in the canned food aisle.
Chef Boyardee's Pac-Man Pasta was made up of noodles vaguely shaped like Pac-Man, his
perpetual ghost antagonists, and "power pellets."
It came in three flavors: tomato sauce with cheese, sauce with mini-meatballs, and a golden
chicken sauce.
Let's just say it didn't look very appetizing, though.
Chef Boyardee did at least go all in on the marketing, which included an animated commercial
that featured Pac-Man chomping on whole cans of pasta.
At the height of the 1980s' excesses, the country was introduced to its first commercially
sold energy drink: Jolt Cola.
Claiming to have double the caffeine of an ordinary soda, Jolt was marketed toward younger
consumers, acting as the fuel for raging parties and night owls pulling all-nighters.
Considering that this was during the time when Diet Coke and caffeine-free Coke also
hit the market, Jolt was going against the prevailing trends in the beverage industry.
It did this proudly, printing its slogan on the front of every can: "All the sugar and
twice the caffeine."
Despite its reputation as caffeinated jet fuel, Jolt was limited to a mere 72 milligrams
of caffeine per can, thanks to FDA soda regulations.
In truth, an ordinary cup of coffee had far more caffeine than a can of Jolt.
And modern energy drinks also have much more caffeine.
Jolt would eventually go under in 2009, only to make a sudden reemergence in 2017 at Dollar
General and Amazon.
"Would you like some more?"
"Just a bit, yeah."
As soon as fall rolls in, the pumpkin spice products and all the jokes about them are
in season.
Despite all the grumbling, pumpkin spice remains incredibly popular, and that's not changing
anytime soon.
Food companies have had a lot of fun trying to make this flavor work in a variety of contexts,
with everything from Oreos to Pringles.
But the award for taking a joke too far goes to Spam for releasing a pumpkin spice flavor
of canned meat.
If a can of pumpkin spice-flavored pork product sounds unappetizing to you, then you might
be in for a surprise, as this one-off gag reportedly sold out in just a few hours.
But it appears that Hormel, the makers of Spam, know when a joke has run its course,
as there's yet to be a seasonal return.
Some canned foods have only a brief moment in the sun before biting the dust, while others
last for generations and then finally fizzle out.
The latter is the case for Campbell's Pepper Pot Soup.
It was one of the company's earliest products, in fact, debuting around the turn of the 20th century.
It was based on Philadelphia Pepper Pot, a recipe that came to the City of Brotherly
Love by way of the West Indies in the 1700s.
The soup was thick like a stew and contained beef tripe, cayenne, pepper, vegetables, and spices.
It was quite popular in the early 20th century but later fell out of fashion.
It would eventually see a resurgence during America's bicentennial in the 1970s when interest
in colonial era culture hit a high point.
But that rejuvenated popularity didn't last, and Campbell's discontinued its version of
Pepper Pot in the 2010s.
The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the way that food producers do business, with some
choosing to cut back the number of products they offer in an effort to streamline their operations.
One such company is General Mills, the maker of Progresso soup.
In July 2020, General Mills announced that it would be discontinuing 40 different items
from Progresso's soup menu.
Interestingly enough, these cuts weren't prompted by falling sales.
The opposite was true, actually, as Progresso sales went up sharply during the early stages
of the pandemic.
However, the retailers who stocked the company's soups wanted to whittle down the selection
to the best-selling products, and General Mills obliged.
Thankfully, Progresso still continues to hold on to its most popular items like Chicken
Noodle Soup and Clam Chowder.
But it does cut deep knowing that a selection of less common, yet still beloved, soups have
been put on the back burner, quite possibly for good.
"It's good, but it's not Progresso."
Way back in the early 2000s, Campbell aired a series of commercials featuring popular
NFL players enjoying Campbell's Chunky Soup.
But the Chunky line was actually born back in the 1970s.
Early marketing for the product claimed that it was so thick and full of meat and vegetables
that you could easily enjoy it with a fork.
"The family favorite!"
Sales for Campbell's Chunky doubled between 1997 and 2002.
They still sell Chunky soups to this day, but not every flavor has been a hit, as the
Meatball Bustin' Sausage Rigatoni and the Philly-Style Cheesesteak have both gotten the ax.
Simply put, a hit series of food products still needs to occasionally trim the fat,
especially if the sales figures don't justify keeping something around.
Riding the tide of energy drinks that dominated the market in the early 2000s, Full Throttle
debuted in 2004 as part of Coca-Cola's attempt to break into the field.
Marketed specifically to the 20- to 30-year-old demographic, Full Throttle was part of the
extreme scene right alongside Monster and Rockstar.
Coca-Cola eventually ended up selling the Full Throttle line, and all of its other energy
drink brands, to Monster in June 2015.
In return, Coca-Cola purchased a 16.7 percent stake in Monster.
While Monster would continue to sell Full Throttle, it began shrinking the selection,
which used to be quite expansive.
As of 2022, there are only two flavors listed on the brand's website.
Soon enough, it might find itself in the discontinued bin entirely.
Not every flavor combination can be an instant smash hit like, say, chocolate and peanut butter.
"You got peanut butter in my chocolate."
"Well, you got chocolate in my peanut butter."
Sometimes in the mad science that is soft drink development, two great tastes might
end up not-so-great when joined together.
So it was with the very limited premiere of Black Cherry Vanilla Coke, which opened and
closed within the span of one year, from 2006 to 2007.
After that, Coca-Cola continued to sell separate vanilla and cherry flavors but didn't combine
the two again.
But they may have been a little too hasty with this decision.
As reported by CNN, Coca-Cola's Freestyle machines, which let people combine different
sodas and flavor syrups in one drink, also collect data on consumer preferences.
It turns out that there were enough people mixing cherry and vanilla to convince Coca-Cola
to bring the combo back in 2020, only this time as simple Cherry Vanilla Coke, not black cherry.
Trader Joe's is slightly higher-class than your typical grocery store.
Its success can be traced to how the chain is able to offer unique and exclusive food
items, while still charging customers a fair price.
Like a typical grocery store, TJ's offers enough to make it a one-stop destination for
almost all of your regular supplies, including pet food.
However, the Trader Joe's pet food aisle is a bit less full than it used to be, as a few
products have been nixed from the store's selection.
According to a 2022 company press release, five flavors of cat food and two flavors of
dog food from Trader Joe's own branded pet food line were discontinued due to underperforming
sales and issues with sourcing ingredients.
Some products are not so much discontinued as they are reformulated to the point of no
longer being the original thing.
For example, Four Loko started out as a caffeinated alcoholic beverage.
But mixing caffeine and alcohol can be very dangerous for the human body.
Caffeine's ability to negate our feeling of tiredness makes us less likely to slow down
after several alcoholic beverages.
And caffeine can even fool your body into not realizing just how drunk you are.
With Four Loko combining energy drink-levels of caffeine with a hefty 12 percent alcohol
content in a sugary package that appealed to underage drinkers, it was a disaster waiting
to happen.
"How many servings are in a can?"
"120."
"All right."
Several states moved to ban the sale of Four Loko, and eventually, the caffeine content
was lowered and eventually removed altogether.
Today, Four Loko is still on sale and is even keeping up with modern trends, as it's released
a hard seltzer that contains a whopping 14 percent alcohol by volume.
Bubble gum's appeal is typically more about blowing and popping bubbles than it is about
the actual flavor.
But there are those who really do love the nostalgic flavor of bubble gum, so much so
that someone tried to trap it in a can.
Canned bubble gum soda started as a bubble gum syrup for snow cones, and then it eventually
became a carbonated beverage.
Then Wrigley, which produces Hubba Bubba bubble gum, officially licensed the product as Hubba
Bubba soda.
This odd product naturally didn't last forever, though some fans did launch an online petition
to resurrect this dead soft drink, it was ultimately unsuccessful.
However, the affection was strong enough that a years-old can of Diet Hubba Bubba was eventually
being sold for $200 on eBay.
Kids typically don't have discerning taste and can be easily persuaded, so they're soft
targets for novelty food products.
So it's no surprise that Chef Boyardee utilizes a ton of gimmicks for its canned pasta.
When the company saw the success that Cambell's was having with its SpaghettiOs, it decided
to one-up its competitor by adding X-shaped pasta to the mix.
The result was Chef Boyardee Tic-Tac-Toe's, which embraced the idea that dinnertime could
also be game time, as kids could play tic-tac-toe with every spoonful.
How you could actually play tic-tac-toe with heaping spoonfuls of pasta was never really
explained, but it was a successful enough novelty while it lasted.
"There's no way you can win that game!"
"I know that, it doesn't."
Some discontinued foods are taken off the market not because of poor sales, but because
they're limited editions that were never intended to stick around forever.
One example came from Pringles, which in 2017 released a chicken-flavored version of its
stacked potato chips with Top Ramen Chicken flavoring.
Finally, the taste of your first college dorm while you cram for finals was captured in
a can!
This variety was part of an exclusive limited promotion with Dollar General.
So that was the only place you could buy these chips, which feels appropriate, as poor, hungry
college students could actually afford them.
Not only was this promotion successful, it was enough of a hit to justify another limited
outing in 2018 when these Top Ramen chips returned to Dollar General.
But once again, they were only available briefly before being shelved.
So we'll just have to wait patiently for the moment when Pringles decides to run another
limited promotion, because it sounds like they actually tasted pretty good.
Sometimes junk food is just junk food no matter how you market it.
Many fruit juices can say they're packed with vitamins, but they mostly contain vast quantities
of sugar.
Life Savers Soda, on the other hand, made no bones about what it was made of.
It was a liquified soda version of the classic hard candy, and it came in a rainbow can like
a larger, squatter version of a roll of Life Savers.
It arrived on the scene in 1995 and came in a variety of fruit-inspired flavors.
But now we can only imagine just how sweet it tasted back in the day.
The failure of Life Savers Soda might've been surprising to the company, as it had reportedly
done well in a taste test.
The original Life Savers remains a popular candy for those who like something sweet or
to freshen their breath.
But clearly, consumers didn't also want it in beverage form.
So it was quickly scrapped and relegated to the bin of bad ideas by massively successful companies.