If you were a fruit snack fan in the ‘90s, but didn’t like Gushers (click to read more), then maybe you set your sights on another fruity delight — Fruit by the Foot. Indeed, there were many different varieties of fruit snack that were popular in the ‘90s, including Fruit Roll Ups, which we’ll dive into at another time. What’s interesting is that all three of these major fruit snacks were created by the same company — Betty Crocker — and have very similar ingredients. That is to say, they’re all mainly sugar and not really fruit. But that sugary deliciousness is exactly what made ’90s kids hope a packet of Fruit by the Foot would be included in their lunchboxes.
Fruit by the Foot was fun in so, so many ways. Whether you were pretending to have a long, 3 foot fruity tongue by dangling it from your mouth, or reading off the jokes that were included on the paper the snack came rolled up in, you were always enjoying yourself. When Fruit by the Foot first came out in 1991, it was marketed with stickers included in the boxes. Kids could put these stickers on their lunchboxes to show off their Fruit by the Foot chops, because you definitely weren’t cool unless you’d had Fruit by the Foot.
The company even partnered with Nintendo for a real synergy moment in 1999 when they printed tips for N64 games on the paper — 90 different tips were available, with three different variations of 30 tips each. Indeed, over the years, Fruit by the Foot has partnered with many different brands for some cross-marketing, with special boxes and flavors created for Goosebumps, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and iCarly to name a few. Though, let’s be honest, if you were given a bunch of different flavors of Fruit by the Foot while blindfolded, would you really be able to tell the different flavors apart? Highly debatable.
While some foods of the ‘90s are no more, that’s not the case for Fruit by the Foot — it’s still going strong today! Indeed, in 2020, a Fruit by the Foot Challenge became a popular meme. Basically, people competed against each other to see who could eat a Fruit by the Foot fastest without using their hands. The meme became so popular, in fact, that the company decided to hold its own version of the speed-eating challenge on YouTube in May 2020, which you can view here. This challenge definitely seems like something kids in the ‘90s used to do too, right? Just, you know, without filming themselves and blasting it all over social media. Those were the days.
But what about you? Were you a Fruit by the Foot fan? What was your favorite flavor, and have you tried them again recently? Let us know in the comments, but first check out this compilation of Fruit by the Foot commercials from the ‘90s to get you in the nostalgic spirit:
- In 2015, some students in Verona, New York decided to test whether Fruit by the Foot’s claim that they were serving “3 feet of fun” was actually true. They measured different samples of various flavors and found that, with the interior fold included, the snack does indeed measure about 3 feet, or 36 inches.
- In 2017, General Mills decided to join the health movement, and removed the artificial colors and flavors from Fruit by the Foot, though the number one ingredient is still sugar, followed up by Maltodextrin and corn syrup, which are both sweeteners as well. Yeah, these are basically just sugar bombs, okay?
- The Betty Crocker website features a bunch of recipes that use Fruit by the Foot — one of our favorites is the Party Time Whistle, which also uses a Fruit Roll-Up to complete the fruit snack whistle.
- Though typically each individually wrapped package of Fruit by the Foot comes with one roll inside, sometimes people have gotten two rolls inside thanks to a serendipitous mess up at the factory.
- Mixers are a variety of Fruit By The Foot that contains packages of 2 solid distinct different flavors, such as Cherry And Grape, or Raspberry And Orange, where each length of the snack splits evenly down the center with the flavors on either side.
- In 2015, some students in Verona, New York decided to test whether Fruit by the Foot’s claim that they were serving “3 feet of fun” was actually true. They measured different samples of various flavors and found that, with the interior fold included, the snack does indeed measure about 3 feet, or 36 inches.
- In 2017, General Mills decided to join the health movement, and removed the artificial colors and flavors from Fruit by the Foot, though the number one ingredient is still sugar, followed up by Maltodextrin and corn syrup, which are both sweeteners as well. Yeah, these are basically just sugar bombs, okay?
- The Betty Crocker website features a bunch of recipes that use Fruit by the Foot — one of our favorites is the Party Time Whistle, which also uses a Fruit Roll-Up to complete the fruit snack whistle.
- Though typically each individually wrapped package of Fruit by the Foot comes with one roll inside, sometimes people have gotten two rolls inside thanks to a serendipitous mess up at the factory.
- Mixers are a variety of Fruit By The Foot that contains packages of 2 solid distinct different flavors, such as Cherry And Grape, or Raspberry And Orange, where each length of the snack splits evenly down the center with the flavors on either side.
