What was innovation like in the 25 years before you were a kid? My mom (probably 25 years older than you) speaks fondly of the candies that were available when she was a kid; I think that’s a quite different set of candies than are available now, and my guess would be that the primary innovations between the ’70s and ’90s would be in preservatives/shelf-life.
Candy is primarily aimed at children, who… aren’t known for their discerning palates. As a child you’re supposed to like sweet and dislike bitter, right? (Because something something poison is bitter and breastmilk is sweet?) My point being that I’d imagine there isn’t really demand for flavor innovation, because kids are happy enough to consume the existing ones?
They do make more flavors of e.g. Starbursts and Skittles than they originally did — although the new flavors are just as artificial-tasting as the old.
It occurs to me that Jelly Belly is quite good with imitating flavors and to some extent textures (did you ever try their Bertie Botts Beans? the dirt flavor was pretty spot-on, complete with grittiness). From their website it looks like they continue putting out new flavors; I haven’t kept up with this since I don’t really eat candy anymore, but my guess would be they still have a pretty good hit rate. Not sure how this info factors into the whole picture.
I’m not sure about texture. I do think novel texture was exciting to me as a kid, but… maybe a wide enough swath of texture-space has already been covered that innovation there is really costly? There really are a huge number of existing sugar-delivery methods — cotton candy, Gushers, Pop Rocks, Tootsie Pops, Pixie Stix, Baby Bottle Pops. In general: hard candies, chewy candies, liquids, powders, crunchy candies, and things that melt in your mouth. What combinations haven’t been tried?
This listicle about what candies were released when was interesting to me, and gives some insight into modern candy innovation. They mention ‘Fudge Brownie M&Ms’ (released 2020), and it looks like Snickers continues releasing new things, like ‘Snickers Almond Brownie & Dark Chocolate Squares’ (August 2021) and ‘Snickers Cinnamon Bun’ (October 2021). Maybe part of the story is that the innovation is being done by existing brands, and those brands are so strongly associated with their original product that it’s hard for the new candies to get uptake? Or maybe there are too many options and people just throw their hands up and are like “I’m just going to get the thing that I’m familiar with!”? Maybe companies are leaning too hard on limited editions & seasonality? Or maybe it’s that fudge brownie M&Ms are good, but they’re not THAT much of an improvement over regular M&Ms?
Scattered thoughts:
What was innovation like in the 25 years before you were a kid? My mom (probably 25 years older than you) speaks fondly of the candies that were available when she was a kid; I think that’s a quite different set of candies than are available now, and my guess would be that the primary innovations between the ’70s and ’90s would be in preservatives/shelf-life.
Candy is primarily aimed at children, who… aren’t known for their discerning palates. As a child you’re supposed to like sweet and dislike bitter, right? (Because something something poison is bitter and breastmilk is sweet?) My point being that I’d imagine there isn’t really demand for flavor innovation, because kids are happy enough to consume the existing ones?
They do make more flavors of e.g. Starbursts and Skittles than they originally did — although the new flavors are just as artificial-tasting as the old.
It occurs to me that Jelly Belly is quite good with imitating flavors and to some extent textures (did you ever try their Bertie Botts Beans? the dirt flavor was pretty spot-on, complete with grittiness). From their website it looks like they continue putting out new flavors; I haven’t kept up with this since I don’t really eat candy anymore, but my guess would be they still have a pretty good hit rate. Not sure how this info factors into the whole picture.
I’m not sure about texture. I do think novel texture was exciting to me as a kid, but… maybe a wide enough swath of texture-space has already been covered that innovation there is really costly? There really are a huge number of existing sugar-delivery methods — cotton candy, Gushers, Pop Rocks, Tootsie Pops, Pixie Stix, Baby Bottle Pops. In general: hard candies, chewy candies, liquids, powders, crunchy candies, and things that melt in your mouth. What combinations haven’t been tried?
This listicle about what candies were released when was interesting to me, and gives some insight into modern candy innovation. They mention ‘Fudge Brownie M&Ms’ (released 2020), and it looks like Snickers continues releasing new things, like ‘Snickers Almond Brownie & Dark Chocolate Squares’ (August 2021) and ‘Snickers Cinnamon Bun’ (October 2021). Maybe part of the story is that the innovation is being done by existing brands, and those brands are so strongly associated with their original product that it’s hard for the new candies to get uptake? Or maybe there are too many options and people just throw their hands up and are like “I’m just going to get the thing that I’m familiar with!”? Maybe companies are leaning too hard on limited editions & seasonality? Or maybe it’s that fudge brownie M&Ms are good, but they’re not THAT much of an improvement over regular M&Ms?