Yikes! Stripes! Fruit Stripe Gum Will Be Discontinued
The nostalgic gum had an over-50 year run. No word on what will happen to the Zebra.
We can’t have anything nice. After 56 years on the market, everyone’s favorite fruit-striped gum, Fruit Stripe Gum, will be discontinued by manufacturer Ferrara Candy Shop.
“The decision to sunset this product was not taken lightly,” a representative for Ferrara told CNN on Wednesday. “We considered many factors before coming to this decision, including consumer preferences, and purchasing patterns — and overall brand trends for Fruit Stripe Gum.”
They also told Food & Wine, which kind of hilariously broke the story nationally, that it was a “difficult decision.”
The gum was first sold in the 1960s and most any Gen Zer or Millennial can sing the jingle or at one time sported a Yikes the Zebra temporary tattoo, which came with each pack.
Is Yikes the Zebra headed to the glue factory now? There’s no way to know.
We will miss all five flavors: Wet n’ Wild Melon, Cherry, Lemon, Orange and Peach. Why did Wet n’ Wild Melon get such a weird and special name? Now we may never know.
Ferrara Candy Shop makes many of the country’s most popular non-chocolate sweet treats, including Pixy Stix, Jujyfruit, Runts, Lemonheads, Boston Baked Beans, Fireballs, Spree, Fun Dip, Red Hots, Gobstoppers, Trolli, Sweet Tarts, Now and Laters, Laffy Taffy, and Nerds. In other words, they could really ruin our lives at any moment by discontinuing more stuff directly tied to our core memories.
Ferrara said that consumers “may be able” to still find the product on shelves around the country before it sells out, but if you want to, you should act quickly. It’s already unavailable on Amazon. Something tells me that the remaining product will not even last as long as the flavor on the sticks of gum did.
On eBay, the gum is already going for $100-200 for a carton of 12 packs of gum.
Over on Reddit, fans of the gum were eulogizing the novelty item in their own ways.
“RIP fruit stripe gum. Your flavor will now be a memory, just like 10 seconds after I popped a fresh strip in my mouth,” one connoisseur wrote.
“I'm really bummed now,” said another person, who was still buying the gum at the Dollar Store. “I'm 46 and still gave myself a tattoo every now and then.”
Anyway. Let’s watch the commercial just one last time, okay?
