Fruit Stripe Gum to Be Discontinued

The brightly-colored gum first hit the market in 1969.

By Russ Burlingame

Fruit Stripe, a gum that has had a presence on grocery store shelves since 1961, is going away. The gum, which came packaged with wrappers that doubled as temporary tattoos, was one of the first chewing gum brands to feature multiple flavors in the same package. Originally created by Beech-Nut, a food and confection company that has since pivoted to baby food. A quick search of Beech-Nut gum will show off decades of history in the field, with Beech-Nut gum being chewed by soldiers in World War II. As noted by candy and snack food historian Jason Liebig, the end of Fruit Stripe represents the final vestiges of that era.

After a few changes of ownership, the property ended up with Ferrara, who are the current owners and the ones who today announced the product has been discontinued. The gum may still be found in some stores as the final stock sells through -- and as we have seen with this kind of product, it wouldn't be surprising to see the brand either sold, or revived at some point in the future when Ferrera sees an uptick in demand.

UPDATED (Jan 11, 8:30 p.m. ET) – The History Channel's Jason Liebig took to social media to discuss the end of Fruit Stripe as a brand, and to correct some misconceptions about its history. In the original version of this story, we -- like virtually everyone else on the internet -- shaved eight years off the brand's lifespan, erroneously saying it was launched in 1969. You can see more from Liebig below.

Fruit Stripe, which features a cartoon zebra mascot (Yipes), and that memorable zebra-striped interior packaging, has already started to be offered on eBay for extortionate prices, reflecting what happens more or less whenever one of these nostalgic brands goes defunct. 

"We have made the difficult decision to sunset Fruit Stripe Gum, but consumers may still be able to find product at select retailers nationwide," reads the statement from Ferrara. "The decision to sunset this product was not taken lightly, and we considered many factors before coming to this decision, including consumer preferences, and purchasing patterns."

The brand has struggled in recent years, and in 2019 rolled out Fruit Stripes Gummy Candy, which could be sold in bags rather than the sticks you probably think of when you hear the brand's name. 

As noted on The Takeout, who got the first comment from Ferrera, the brand has had a bit of an image problem over the years, with even the people who liked it joking that its flavor didn't last very long. If you try to buy the gum now, you'll have a hard time finding a retailer who has it in stock -- but there is fan-made merch you can buy that feature Yipes the zebra with the caption "my tolerance for people only lasts this long."

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The Takeout first spotted this on Reddit, where a user posted, "I was a bit confused when it began disappearing from my regular places I would buy it like Walgreens and Walmart." 

The site notes that while Fruit Stripe has struggled in recent years, Ferrara itself is doing fine. The company traffics heavily in nostalgic brands, and they own a number of other products including Fun Dip, Gobstopper, Nerds, Pixy Stix, and Spree.

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