The Student News Site of Weber State University

The Signpost

The Signpost

The Signpost

The Signpost

Latest YouTube Video

Simonson Says: The best snacks you'll never find

You think companies that make delicious products ever call a meeting and say, “OK, gang, business is good, but there’s one of our products that is just far too delicious and people like way too much. We should probably pull it off the shelves. We wouldn’t want people to, you know, get addicted to it or get fat or anything.”

You might think I’m leading up to an analogy for a bigger issue here, but I assure you I’m not. Why can I never find the best varieties of snacks I like anywhere anymore? Did everybody just get tipped off that I liked them and do it just to screw with me? Don’t even try to tell me that these confections I can no longer find just weren’t doing very well, because I know I am not the only person in the world with functioning taste buds.

I write this list of the top 10 most delicious things that seem to have been banned — most of them from still-thriving brands that have no discernible reason to be making cuts — in the hopes that someone will respond, “Huh? I still see those all the time. Just go to this little independent store or Vernal. You can also get them online.”

10. Purple Sunny Delight. Well, it was more indigo than purple, but does anyone remember this? I don’t even remember what flavor it was; I just remember it looked and tasted like something poetic, like the fruit of the night. Why on earth is this sweet and beautiful beverage gone when pink Sunny D is still going strong and lesser flavors are still being churned out? What logical reason for this could there possibly be? Methinks someone needs to be demoted or fired.

9. Those tubes of ice-cream-flavored stuff. I apologize for not being more specific here, but I only got one of these once. On a family trip when I was about 9, we stopped at a convenience store selling these tubes of mousse-like substance flavored like chocolate or vanilla ice cream. For some reason, I chose the vanilla, oblivious to the fact that I would never have a chance to try the chocolate. My cousin asked why I’d gotten the vanilla; she said the chocolate one was delicious. In the next life I will taste you, chocolate tube.

8. Quaker’s Chewy cookies-n-cream granola bars. There’s certainly never a shortage of their most boring flavors, like oatmeal raisin. Why not give some of that shelf room to the granola bar that made me like granola bars? Sure, they were closer to candy bars, with the white chocolate chips, little chunks of chocolate cookie, and the oats glued together with honey, but Chewy never claimed to be a health food. Surely they haven’t discontinued their best and undoubtedly most popular flavor, so where on earth do I find them if not, I don’t know, the Chewy granola bar shelf at Walmart?

7. Loganberry punch. I tried this only once, at a Chinese buffet, years ago. It was this glossy purplish mauve color that I want to buy 10 outfits in and smelled like wildflowers. I still hear about loganberries once in a while, so I will make this myself if I have to.

6. Fruit-flavored Brummel & Brown. I’d take Brummel & Brown, the creamy fake butter made with yogurt, over real butter in a second. But I never see their strawberry and blueberry spreads anymore. That stuff could turn Wonder Bread into manna.

5. White-iced chocolate Zingers. OK, Zingers clearly are not hurting for business, so even if this was their worst-selling flavor, and I don’t see how it could’ve been, they should’ve been able to keep it. I don’t know what it was about the combo of chocolate cake and white icing, but it is something chocolate-on-chocolate Zingers somehow just can’t recapture. Maybe it’s just high-school vending machines that carry this mother of all snack cakes?

4. Smurf ice cream. When I was little, I’d get this bright blue ice cream nearly every time we went to Harmon’s. And it was really blue, not “blue” like blueberry cheesecake ice cream. The other increasingly obscure flavors I would get, like Play-Doh, Superman and licorice, at least can still be found at some Farr’s locations. I’d like to Smurf somebody in the Smurfing Smurf for this travesty.

3. Carl’s Jr. Oreo cheesecake. I see how it is, Carl’s Jr. You get us hooked on a packaged cheesecake based around a mediocre dime-store cookie that, beyond all reason, put the Cheesecake Factory’s finest to shame, then you pull it from the shelves because you felt it was, I don’t know, too fattening or something? Have you seen the calorie count on your burgers lately? Don’t tell me your deal with Oreo expired or whatever, because you still put them in your shakes. For my years of loyal business despite my knowledge of your vast contribution to the country’s obesity problem, I demand you give this back. I suggest you take this very, very seriously, Carl.

2. Dreyer’s Slow-Churned berry granola yogurt. Stop forcing your various chocolates and peaches on us, Dreyer’s Slow-Churned; we can find those anywhere. What you were best at was this miraculous flavor that did absolutely everything right. It had the crunch, the delicate sweetness, the creamy texture – it had it all. What kind of hacks do you have deciding which flavors to scrap and which to keep?

1. Village Inn’s white chocolate cherry pie. I’ve saved this one for now, because it’s a very sensitive subject with me. I’m starting to realize I’m not that big of a pie person, because I eat other kinds of pie at Village Inn and feel nothing. When they discontinued this miracle of satiny mousse filling, chocolate crust and cherry topping, they showed just how little they know about the dessert they claim to do better than anyone. If I am ever a billionaire, my first selfish act will be to pay Village Inn as much as they want to bring this thing back, or completely buy them out if they refuse. I will call the new Village Inn “We Don’t Kill Off Your Favorite Pie and Blackberry Hot Chocolate (I think they stopped doing this too, right?) For No Intelligent Reason.”

Leave a Comment
More to Discover

Comments (0)

Comments written below are solely the opinions of the author and does not reflect The Signpost staff or its affiliates.
All The Signpost Picks Reader Picks Sort: Newest

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *