Froot Loop Straws: History, Facts & Marketing

Snack History Nostalgia Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

If you love Froot Loops cereal, you might have been aware of the spin-off product Froot Loop Straws which was very popular until it was pulled from shelves in 2009 and recently reintroduced to market due to its beloved status. Froot Loop straws were a completely zany product that enjoyed great success during its short run.

This is one of those really strange products that does not really fit into any one category of food and instead occupies something of a novelty space between cereal, candy, and toy. Imagine making all your drinks taste like Froot Loops simply by adding the right straw to them. This is the concept of the Froot Loop straw, and it’s one that has been a strong success for years now despite all the odds against this outcome.

History

To understand the popularity of the Froot Loop Straws product, one has to know a little more about Froot Loops cereal. This ultra-sweet and fruity cereal were first sold in 1959, and it was targeted specifically at kids when it was first sold. The Toucan mascot and the delightful cartoony ads that were used to promote the product immediately were a hit with kids. Top this off with a bowl of very sugary and sweet cereal, and you have a recipe for long-term success when marketing food products toward kids.

The playful nature of this cereal brand was always front and center to its success. With brightly-colored circular cereal pieces, a very colorful box, and a cartoon mascot that was very memorable, there was no shortage of excitement offered to kids by this product. Over the years, the sugar content of Froot Loops has come to the attention of those who want to agitate for healthier foods in the US, and there have been limited sales of Froot Loops in other countries because the recipe does not meet healthy eating standards.

During the early years of the success of the Froot Loops brand, a marketing effort centered around toys that were included in boxes and box top prizes. This was common practice for all cereal makers at the time, and Froot Loops was no exception. However, times changed, and kids were not as motivated by plastic toys as they had once been. So how to market your cereal products with the idea that they are fun for kids?

The answer that Kellogg’s came up with was to coat a straw in ground-up Froot Loops and then sell packs of them to kids looking to flavor milk and other drinks with Froot Loop goodness. The funny thing about the Froot Loop straws was that it was almost as popular with adults as it was with kids. This was a spin-off product that should not have been a hit, but that was instead a pretty big success, particularly for a secondary promotional product.

The price point was really excellent, which was part of the reason for these little straws being such a big hit, and the temptation to make every drink in the home taste like the sweetness of Froot Loops must have been a secondary motivator for parents and kids alike. Ads suggested that you could eat your bowl of Froot Loops and then use your Froot Loop Straws to make the leftover milk that much more delicious. This was clearly a suggestion that sounded enticing to many people, and Froot Loop Straws began to carve out a fam-favorite niche for themselves.

However, things were about to change for cereal makers all over the US as more attention started to be paid to the amount of sugar that was included in various children’s cereals and other kid-targeted products. While Froot Loop Straws were never specifically named as a problem product, there is no doubt that a straw coated in sugar dust would have easily been conflated with the movement to change the sugar content of various products being marketed to kids.

For children of the 80s and 90s, it can be hard to imagine a world where children’s foods were not loaded with sugar. Everything from breakfast items to box lunch meals and TV dinners were loaded with sugar to make them appeal to kids of all ages. Paired with atomically-bright sugary drinks and loads of sugary candy, these foods made up the normal diet of kids and young adults alike for nearly two decades.

The gimmicky nature of this product was also well in keeping with the 80s and 90s foods that many of us grew up eating. You probably remember Capri-Suns, as well as Lunchables that pretended to be pizza, and various other strange items that were nothing at all like food that were amazingly popular.

It was peak 90s excitement to unwrap some kind of unhealthy and bizarre food item at lunchtime so that you could be the envy of all of your friends. The lack of healthy eating options for kids during this period did not escape the notice of parents for too long, but during the peak season of strangely colored, oddly conceptualized foods, Froot Loop Straws were a master stroke of genius.

As awareness of the health risks associated with high-sugar foods started to come to the forefront, however, consumer groups began to call out Kellogg’s sugary cereal products alongside the sugar-loaded offerings made by many other major corporations. This was likely the beginning of the end of the Froot Loop Straws product, and by 2009, they were not long on shelves. However, the Froot Loop Straw was so popular that there was an immediate effort made to petition to bring it back.

There have been various other products that have been returned to shelves due to the efforts of those petitioning, and these run the gamut from cereals to snacks, to candy. Froot Loop Straws are not the only classic and also strange food product that has made a return to the market long after it was discontinued.

After 12 years off the shelves, the petition efforts were successful! Froot Loop Straws are offered for sale online and might make an appearance in some novelty candy stores as well. You can now try out the sugary wonderfulness of this strange little product if you missed out on it when it was first sold. While the new product likely is still sugary enough that it is not an ideal choice for daily consumption, this is still a very fun way to enjoy Froot Loops products.

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Ingredients

From the Amazon entry for the product:

• Wheat flour
• Sugar
• Maltodextrin
• Blend of vegetable oils (palm & shea oil)
• Skim milk powder
• Whole egg powder
• Rapeseed oil
• Soy lecithin (emulsifier)
• Salt
• Natural flavor
• Yellow 5
• Red 40
• Yellow 6
• Blue 1

Allergy warnings are milk, soy, wheat, egg, peanuts, hazelnuts, and almonds. Clearly not a product for those with food limitations or allergies, which needs to be kept in mind. This is not a food product that is easy to relate to any known other kind of food, so it is wise to be aware of all the various allergens that are included in this product.

Nutrition

Serving Size:	3 straws	% Daily Value *
Amount Per Serving
Calories	140Kcal	8%
Total Fat	3.5g	6%
Saturated Fat	2g	12%
Trans Fat	0g	0%
Cholesterol	0g	0%
Sodium	15mg	1%
Total Carbohydrate	24g	10%
Dietary Fiber	0g	0%
Sugars	12g	17%
Added Sugars	12g	50%
Protein	2g	4%
Vitamin A	150mcg	21%
Vitamin C	0mg	0%
Calcium	0mg	0%
Iron	0mg	0%
Vitamin D	1mcg	5%

Can You Actually Eat Froot Loop Straws?

Yes, these straws are actually edible and can be eaten like candy. This is one of the more unique and slightly strange things about this product and one of the reasons that people have always liked it so much. There are many other kinds of flavoring concepts that can make hot chocolate taste minty or sweet or that might add honey and other flavorings to tea, but you cannot eat the entire stick or straw. The Froot Loop Straws is entirely edible and can serve all of the purposes of a straw while also making a great snack.

The commercials for this product even show kids eating them rather than using them like straws so that consumers will really understand that they are safe to eat. There is no other product out there that professes to be entirely edible, so this makes Froot Loop Straws really different from the other products in this space.

Flavors

While Froot Loops cereal comes in various varieties, there are no individual flavors in Froot Loop Straws. The straws are different colors, but they are all the same flavor, just like the original Froot Loops cereal. Many people believe that they are flavored based on the different colors of the straws, but this is not the case.

This product is sold online at this time in most cases, so you will get three packs of straws, but this does not indicate that these packs offer different flavors. You will simply get three unique packs of multi-colored straws, but they are all the same as one another and do not have unique flavors to enjoy.

Pictures

Commercials

A new ad for the revived straw product, which also includes ads for Rice Krispy straws at the end:

Another classic ad that is just for the Froot Loop Straws product itself: