Why Americans smuggle fruit sandwiches to Israel

Cocaine. Foreign currency. Firearms. Any contraband that customs officers are trained to catch.

But hundreds of kilos of Fruit Roll-Ups?

Welcome to the era of TikTok-influenced smuggling.

Because of a recipe that widely distributed on the social media platform Fruit Roll-Ups — the American-made fruit leather snack that has been around since the the 80’s — have become an obsession in Israel, where a shortage means smuggling the snacks in can be very profitable.

But the Israeli government is cracking down. The Israeli tax authorities have brought the scheme to light in a statement on social media last week, saying that inspectors and an undercover unit at Ben Gurion Airport had caught several people, including Americans, trying to bring excessive amounts of the snacks into the country.

The agency seized hundreds of pounds of Fruit Roll-Ups, it said — 661 pounds in one week alone. Since one Roll-Up weighs only 0.5 ounces, there are tens of thousands of individual packages.

The reason for all this? People want their ice cream to be crunchy and are willing to pay for it.

The trend started earlier this year when Golnar Ghavami, an influencer who goes by @golis dream posted a video on TikTok in which she wrapped a scoop of mango ice cream in a Fruit Roll-Up, thinking she was sharing her guilty pleasure.

She showed the Fruit Roll-Up to freeze right around the ice cream making a hand-friendly dessert that offers a surprising and satisfying crunch. Ms. Ghavami’s original video has now been viewed over 14 million times and TikTok has been flooded with videos of people trying it out, including some from the official Fruit Roll-Ups account, whose social media executives seemed to bask in the overnight success.

But the frenzy in Israel completely sold out stores across Tel Aviv with Fruit Roll-Ups, according to local news reports. When they were able to get their hands on them, merchants across the country instead began selling individually wrapped Fruit Roll-Ups — which are usually sold in boxes of various snacks — for up to $8 each, the IRS said, although a box of 10 Fruit Roll-Ups in the United States cost about $3 on average.

The market shortfall caught the attention of enterprising minds in America.

In late April, the agency said, an American couple was caught each carrying a suitcase filled with more than 185 pounds of Fruit Roll-Ups, part of a nearly 375-pound haul. The IRS also shared video of the unusual discovery, which showed a customs officer going through several suitcases filled only with hundreds of the tiny silver and red foil wrappers.

That far exceeded the legal import limit for a person entering Israel, which is about 11 pounds of a specific food item.

In the video, a male voice can be heard answering why he filled two checked bags with Fruit Roll-Ups. “It has something to do with ice cream,” he said the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

More recently, according to the agency, another couple was caught with about 30 pounds of Fruit Roll-Ups. Two single passengers were also caught traveling from the United States with large amounts: one carrying nearly 73 pounds of the snacks in suitcases and another traveling with more than 143 pounds.

Last week, the Israeli Ministry of Health took a stance and warned against the large labeling of Fruit Roll-Ups.

The desk, in a statement on Twitter, called the frenzy and the smuggling attempts “madness.” The goodies, the ministry warned, may be photogenic and trendy, but they are also full of unhealthy sugars and oils.

Instead, it offered an alternative: cucumber rolls.