Fruit Stripe Gum, famous for its short bursts of flavor, is being discontinued
Fruit Stripe, the striped gum known for its short burst of flavor, has been discontinued after more than half a century, inspiring nostalgic tributes on social media.
“The best two second taste you’ve ever had,” said one Reddit user wrote on Wednesday. “RIP to a legend.”
Rainbow-colored packs of Fruit Stripe gum first appeared in stores in the United States in the late 1960s. Ferrara, a pastry chef based in Chicago, said this week that it had stopped producing the product.
“We considered many factors before making this decision, including consumer preferences and purchasing patterns – and overall brand trends,” the company said in a statement.
The pack’s five gum sticks featured wavy zebra stripes, and each stick had a different color and flavor: cherry, lemon, orange, peach and “Wet n’ Wild Melon.” The taste, spicy rather than fruity, was notorious for disappearing within seconds, almost on contact.
Early advertising used the Fruit Stripe Gum Man, an anthropomorphic gum suit with limbs and a face. Later, advertisers used a family of animals, including a zebra, tiger, elephant and mouse, in commercials and posters, and in a range of retail products including coloring books and hugs.
Yipes the Zebra emerged as the dominant mascot, with each gum wrapper doubling as a temporary tattoo of Yipes. The tattoos depicted Yipes in active poses, such as skateboarding, playing baseball or eating grass.
Fruit Stripe also came in jumbo packs of 17 sticks. On social media, consumers shared childhood memories of consuming all seventeen sticks of gum at once, in a vain attempt to preserve the gum’s flavor.
“The wildest three-second ride your taste buds have ever known,” one person posted on Reddit.
An account on social media site X, called Discontinued Foods!, described Fruit Stripe as “an icon in the chewing gum field”, and people filled a thread with jokes about how quickly the gum went from delicious to disappointing.
Some compared chewing Fruit Stripe to chasing a drug high.
Ferrara, which also makes Sweet Tarts, Nerds, Laffy Taffy and Fun Dip, said consumers may still be able to find Fruit Stripe in stores, but it was unclear how much stock was left. The company did not respond to an interview request Thursday.
On the websites of several major retailers, including Walmart and Amazon, Fruit Stripe was listed as unavailable.
The gum was found on eBay, where one seller was present offered a dozen packages for $189 alongside other Fruit Stripe paraphernalia, including T-shirts, coffee mugs and vintage posters featuring a grinning Yipes the Zebra.