Of all the fads I've witnessed in snacks and candies over the years, we are currently in the middle of one of the most inexplicable trends...the attempt to make one junk food taste like another. I don't mean combining two disparate flavors, like adding potato chips to a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, or finding a new form factor for an existing snack, such as Twinkie's cereal or Twinkie's drumsticks ice cream. Those at least make sense to me.
I'm talking about partnerships between two nearly identically-flavored junk foods which are direct competitors for our taste buds (and wallets). Exhibit A: "Funyuns-flavored Lays Wavy Potato Chips." Funyuns, if you aren't aware, are an onion-flavored chip-like snack that come in bags stocked on the store shelves immediately adjacent to Lays. If you are in the mood for an onion-flavored chip, why wouldn't you just buy Sour Cream and Onion Lays, Ruffles or Pringles? If you prefer the corn-meal based Funyuns, these are readily available. Why would you instead choose a potato chip that is trying to imitate your preferred snack?
Now, before I go on, let me just say that the person who first had the epiphany to coat Rice Krispies cereal in butter and marshmallows deserves an honored place in the pantheon of American (nay, World!) history...right behind the two people that got their chocolate in the other's peanut butter and right ahead of the discovery of penicillin. But that doesn't mean we need to cheapen the beauty of Rice Krispie Treats by partnering them with...shudder...Peeps.
This is either the most brilliant examples of brand synergy I have ever seen, or one of the laziest...akin to announcing Hershey chocolate-flavored M&Ms. Peeps, which are nothing but sugar-coated marshmallows, are typically colored fluorescent pink and yellow for Easter and often released in different flavors such as chocolate, strawberry, caramel apple and pickle (!). For Rice Krispies Treats Peeps, we basically have an uncolored and unflavored Peep. In other words, a marshmallow!
Does it taste any better or worse than a regular Peep? No. Does it taste like a Rice Krispies Treat? Minus the cereal and the butter, I suppose so. (They might as well release Rice Krispies Treat-flavored Jet-Puffed marshmallows while they are at it...) Is there any reason to choose this junk food if Rice Krispies Treats are still being produced? Or as long as we have access to cereal, butter and marshmallows? None at all.
RATING: 3 / 5
