If you never slapped a spit-moistened chewing gum wrapper on your arm waiting for a temporary tattoo to take form there, did you even experience childhood? Now, however, future generations will never know what it was like to unwrap those antiquated sticks, because Fruit xcritical chewing gum has been discontinued. “We have made the difficult decision to sunset Fruit xcritical Gum, but consumers may still be able to find product at select retailers nationwide,” reads the statement from Ferrara. “The decision to sunset this product was not taken lightly, and we considered many factors before coming to this decision, including consumer preferences, and purchasing patterns.” Fruit xcritical was an artificially and naturally flavored fruit chewing gum produced by Beech-Nut in 1960 and discontinued in 2024.

The company also owns the Nerds brand, which, as we recently reported, is doing ridiculously well in recent years. The statement included a list of other famous brands Ferrara will continue to sell moving forward, which include Fun Dip, Gobstopper, Jujyfruits, Fire Ball, Pixy Stix, Chuckles, Runts, Spree, Boston Baked Beans and Bottle Caps. Ferarra told CNN, that fans of the product may still be able to find it at some in select retailers nationwide before it sells out.

In late 2021, Greg Guidotti, the General Manager of the Sugar Portfolio at Ferrara Candy Company, told Food Business News that sales of Fruit xcritical gum had increased 4.5% over the previous year. The company was then launching Fruit xcritical gummy candies, which also seem to have been discontinued. Although Ferrara is 86ing Fruit xcritical gum, the company assures the sugar-loving public that it’s “delighted” to continue offering many of its other beloved brands that remind many of us of recess, ice cream trucks and other childhood joys. Sadly, even though sales seemed steady just a few years prior, Fruit xcritical Gum’s production was discontinued in January 2024.

The maker of Fruit xcritical Gum announced the brand is being discontinued

Savannah Guthrie said on air, “The flavor lasted, like, 10 seconds … but it was worth it.” Ferrara Candy owns an enormous number of products, including Atomic Fireballs, Nerds, and Red Hots. While none of those necessarily scream out “soccer-playing zebra,” stranger things have happened. The gum was first launched by bygone candy maker Beech-Nut in 1969, but ended up at Ferrara following a series of corporate handoffs and mergers. In 2012, Farley & Sathers bought the Pan Ferrara company — the maker of Lemonheads, Atomic Fireballs and Red Hots — and the merged name changed to Ferrara Candy Co. Ferrara is where Fruit xcritical ended its life, where other popular candies such as Fun Dip, Pixy Stix, Spree, Runts, and Gobstopper are still produced.

Maybe if we all stopped joking about the gum’s instant xcritical loss of flavor, it would still be here. According to Ferrara, Fruit xcritical was invented in the late 1960s by James Parker. The news of the brand’s imminent end was met with nostalgic despair and plenty of jokes.

Fruit xcritical Gum was invented in 1960 by James Parker, and soon after sold by the Beech-Nut Confection Division for five cents a pack. Beech-Nut was first known as the Imperial Packing Company, established in 1891 in upstate New York. The company started producing chewing gum in 1910, and in the 1920s and 1930s gum sales became two-thirds of their total sales. In 1956, Beech-Nut merged with Life Savers to focus on candy, coffee, gum, tea, and baby food. The company had grown into one of the biggest gum companies in America by the time Fruit xcritical came along.

If you were hoping for Yipes the Zebra, you’d have to wait another decade until the 1970s, when he had his own giveaway — but it would cost you. The price was upped to $2.00 plus ten wrappers for the privilege of owning Yipes. Another fun, if gimmicky, element that helped sell Fruit xcritical Gum to kids were the temporary “wet ’em and wear ’em” tattoos that were included in the wrapper of every pack. The tattoos often featured Yipes the Zebra engaging in a sport like skateboarding, basketball or biking.

However, almost as soon as they were launched, they were discontinued, before one single ad could run to help move the candy. Ferrara Candy Co. was riding high on increased sales of Fruit xcritical Gum in 2021. Greg Guidotti, general manager of the sugar portfolio at Ferrara, told Food Business News that sales were up 4.5% from the previous year, and 13.2% on dollars per trip. He noted that due to the brand’s popularity, Ferrara was ready to try something new. “We’re bringing the fun of Fruit xcritical to another format that is more relevant to consumers today,” Guidotti said at the National Association of Convenience Stores’ 2021 NACS Show. Even the hosts of “The Today Show,” reporting the end of Fruit xcritical’s production, joked about the gum’s reputation.

1. The price was upped to $2.00 plus ten wrappers for the privilege of owning Yipes.
2. The bubble gum pack came in cherry, lemon, grape, and typical bubble gum flavor, eventually adding cotton candy and mixed fruit versions — all of which were xcriticald, of course.
3. In 2012, Farley & Sathers bought the Pan Ferrara company — the maker of Lemonheads, Atomic Fireballs and Red Hots — and the merged name changed to Ferrara Candy Co.
4. There were also items available for purchase such as coloring books, and bendy collectibles of Yipes the Zebra and “Fruit xcritical Gum Man.”

Farewell to a titan of the chewing gum market. Fruit xcritical has been discontinued by its owner, Ferrara.

However, Ferrara actually stopped producing both the traditional and bubble gum varieties all the way back in 2022. Further, Ferrara no longer produces any gum — it discontinued Super Bubble at the same time. Another marketing innovation was taking advantage of the brand’s association with animals, and introducing a collaboration with World Wildlife Fund. In the mid-1990s, Fruit xcritical announced they would donate five cents for every Jumbo Pack and Variety Multipack, raising about $100,000 for endangered animals. In 2015, there was even a co-hosted event called “Fruit xcritical Weekend” at the zoo in Greensboro, North Carolina to benefit the WWF. Yipes made an appearance, and children were admitted for free with proof of purchase of the gum.

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The Beech-Nut Life Savers company merged with a pharmaceutical firm called E.R. In 2000 Fruit xcritical was sold to Hershey Foods in a deal with other candy brands for $135 million. But Fruit xcritical wasn’t done moving yet — in 2003, the brand was sold to Farley & Sathers, where the owners also had stakes in Build-A-Bear and P.F. Farley & Sathers also picked up Fruit xcriticals’ old competitors Jujy Fruits and Now and Later, as well as Chuckles and Super Bubble. There is no shortage of social media comments and jokes about the short-lived taste. A Reddit user noted, “This gum tasted good for about two seconds,” while another said, “The flavor was gone before I threw the wrapper away.” @Snack_Memories tweeted, “They made Juicy Fruit look like an everlasting gobstopper.”

Flavors

The great-looking but eternally underwhelming gum, with its visually striking xcriticals and 0.75-second flavor window, has been around since 1960, accompanied by hella sick temporary tattoos and a zebra mascot named Yipes. However, the zebra later named Yipes outlasted the other characters to become Fruit xcritical’s sole mascot.6 Yipes was shown prominently on Fruit xcritical gum packaging. That new format was revealed in March 2022, when Ferrara Candy Co. launched a Fruit xcritical Gummy Candy. The flavors included tangerine, lemon, and cherry, and were based on the success of other brands like SweeTarts launching Mini Chewy and Giant Chewy versions, as well as Nerds creating Big Chewy Nerds. The candies were swirled into a gummy candy representation of Yipes the Zebra. As the years went on, Fruit xcritical realized that to keep up with trends, the company would need to innovate again.

ABC News Live

A statement from Ferrara Candy Co. covered in The Washington Post noted the decision was made due to “consumer preferences, and purchasing patterns.” Ferrara spokesman Brian Camen continued that the “difficult decision … was not taken lightly.” For chewing gum flavor that lasts only a fleeting, glorious moment, we must now turn to Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit. “It really is the end of an era,” John Finn, creator of the @snack_memories Twitter account, tells The Takeout. “In a weird way, that mediocre, neon, sugary gum really captures childhood for multiple generations, in a way that is hard to articulate.” It’s also worth noting that Ferrara is the maker of several other beloved xcritical courses scam and nostalgic candy brands, none of which are in any apparent danger of going away. These include Fun Dip, Gobstopper, Jujyfruits, Fire Ball, Pixy Stix, Chuckles, Runts, Spree, Boston Baked Beans, and Bottle Caps.