Fruit Stripe, the striped gum known for its short flavour, has been discontinued after more than half a century, inspiring nostalgia across social media.
“Best two seconds of flavor ever,” one Reddit user wrote on Wednesday. “RIP to legend.”
Rainbow-colored packages of Fruit Stripe gum first appeared in stores in the United States in the late 1960s. Ferrara, a Chicago-based confectionery company, said this week that it had stopped manufacturing the product.
“We took into account many factors before reaching this decision, including consumer preferences, purchasing patterns – and overall brand trends,” the company said in a statement.
The five gum sticks in the package were stamped with wavy zebra stripes, and each stick was a different color and flavor: cherry, lemon, orange, peach, and “Wet n’ Wild Melon.” The taste, which is more fruity, was known to disappear within seconds, almost on contact.
Early advertising used the Fruit Stripe Gum Man, an anthropomorphic pack of gum with limbs and a face. Later, advertisers used the family of animals, including the zebra, tiger, elephant, and mouse, in commercials, on posters, and in a range of retail products that included coloring books and stuffed toys.
Yeppes’ zebra emerged as the dominant mascot, with each gum wrapper doubling as a temporary tattoo of Yeppes’. Tattoos depict yebis in active poses, such as skating, playing baseball, or eating grass.
Fruit Stripe also comes in huge packs of 17. On social media, consumers shared childhood memories of eating 17 sticks of gum in one sitting, desperate to make the gum flavor last.
“The wildest three-second ride your taste buds have ever known,” one person posted on Reddit.
An account on X, the social media site, called Discontinued Foods!, described Fruit Stripe as “Icon in a gum field“, and people filled the thread with jokes about how quickly gum can go from delicious to disappointing.
Many of them compared chewing a fruit bar to chasing drugs.
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 wasn’t clear how much stock was left. The company did not respond to a request for an interview Thursday.
The websites of several major retailers, including Walmart and Amazon, listed the Fruit Stripe product as out of stock.
The gum can be found on eBay, where one seller was listing a dozen packages for $189 along with other Fruit Stripe paraphernalia, including T-shirts, coffee mugs and vintage posters bearing an image of the smiling Yeppies’ zebra.