Fruit Roll-Ups

File:FruitRoll-Ups3.jpg

A single Rainbow Roll-Up wrapper and fruit snack. Australian version.

Fruit Roll-Ups is a brand of fruit-flavored snack, considered by some a candy, that debuted in grocery stores across the United States in 1980. Research for the product began in 1975. Fruit Roll-Ups are manufactured by General Mills and distributed under the Betty Crocker brand in the United States and the Uncle Tobys brand in Australia. The snack is a flat, pectin-based fruit-flavored snack, wrapped around a piece of cellophane for easier removal. Often the consumer must unwrap the cellophane an extra revolution in order to remove the snack due to its tendency to stick to itself. Fruit Roll-Ups is similar to Fruit by the Foot (also a General Mills Snack) in that both snacks are packaged similarly (i.e., rolled around a material so the product does not stick to itself); however, the two snacks differ with respect to taste, texture, and consistency. In the United States, retail Fruit Roll-Ups are sold in boxes of 10.

Kellogg's created "Fruit Winders" in the UK, which is an extremely similar product only in fewer flavours.

Advertising

Fruit Corners Fruit Roll-Ups were heavily marketed on television in the United States throughout the early 1980s. Most spots featured the tag line "Fruit Corners Fruit Roll-Ups: Real fruit and fun, rolled up in one." Later spots featured children innovating in the "Fruit Roll-Up Fun Factory".

Commercial spots for Betty Crocker Fruit Roll-Ups were common on "Saturday morning" style cartoon shows in 2008.

History of the Fruit Roll

Joray Fruit Rolls are a round, fruit leather product from New York that predates Fruit Roll-Ups. Fruit Roll-Ups have a more rubbery texture than the natural rolls and though were originally round in shape, they are now shaped like a parallelogram.

According to urban legend, this is because the production process for the original round-shaped product was too slow to keep up with demand. A General Mills engineer was inspired by the spiral shape of the cardboard roll after he pulled the last sheet of toilet paper, and he successfully argued that producing Fruit Roll-Ups in a similar fashion would be more productive. However, this claim has not been verified.

Fruit Roll-Ups have featured variants on the original plain sheets such as punch out shapes on the rolls and temporary tattoos and tattoos for tongues.

Flavors

Betty Crocker Fruit Roll-Ups current flavors

• Blastin' Berry Hot Colors
  • Blastin Blue/Green
  • Sizzlin' Red/Yellow
• Cherry Orange Wild
• Tropical Tie-Dye
• Strawberry
• Cola-Lemon
• Crazy Pix Cool Chix Berry Wave
• Crazy Pix Wild Ones Blastin' Berry
• Electric Blue Raspberry
• Flavor Wave
• Rainbow
• Strawberry Kiwi Kick
• Amazing Cherry
• Sunberry Burst
• Electric Yellow
• Screamin' Green
• Lemon Lime
• SpongeBob SquarePants: Tropical Punch
• Franken Berry and Boo Berry (Sold seasonally at Halloween)

Betty Crocker sells Fruit Roll-Ups in single-flavor boxes and flavor variety packs.

Kelloggs Fruit Winders

Fruit Winders were introduced in the UK and Ireland in the early 2000s under the Kelloggs brand. They were first called Real Fruit Winders, then Screamin Fruit Winders to be more appealing but are now called Fruit Winders. When the product first came out, there was seven different flavours and two spin-off products to make it more popular which were later discontinued. The three original flavours were Strawberry, orange and blackcurrant (Later apple was introduced). Only Strawberry is the original flavour, while blackcurrant and apple became the two flavours in the Doubles brand.

Flavours

Ordinary

• Strawberry (Mixed with pear juice)
• Orange (Discontinued in 2006)
• Blackcurrant (Now in the Doubles brand as of 2006)
• Apple (Now in the Doubles brand as of 2006)
• Tropical (Grapefruit, banana and passion fruit) (Discontinued in 2006) (winner of a flavour choice competition involving itself and the next two flavours below)
• Lemon (Discontinued in 2006)
• Raspberry (Discontinued in 2006)

Doubles (Mixed with pear juice)

• Strawberry and Apple
• Strawberry and Blackcurrant
• Apple and Blackcurrant

Spin-offs

• Screamin Fruit Squidgers - Squashed fruit snack that you squeeze (like a tube of Go-Gurt). (Flavours were strawberry, apple and blackcurrant)(Discontinued as of 2006)
• Screamin Fruit Spurters - Gummy fruit flavoured sweets that have a soft liquid fruit flavoured centre. (Flavours were strawberry, orange, blackcurrant and apple) (Discontinued as of 2006)

The TV adverts for Fruit Winders always showed a normal fruit with eyes and a mouth being winded into a Fruit Winder by a character that was a humanoid version of the fruit it was harming. There has not been any recent fruit winder commercials since 2005/2006.

Name of Characters

• Sorbabe - A female strawberry who loves to dance to music as a musical D.J.
• Blabber - A male orange who loves to perform hilarious pranks with his comedian lifestyle.
• Booster - A male blackcurrent who is intelligent with his gadgets and whatnots.
• Max - A female apple that loves to get fit with her sport-centered abilities.
• VooJuice - A male tropical witch-doctor who loves to put curses on his prey.
• Sadie - A female lemon who loves to cause misery to her assassinated target.
• SecretAgent - A male Raspberry who is assigned with a license to kill.

Comic

On the paper attached to the Fruit Winder, a comic strip is shown, it shows a comic of the characters winding the fruit. Every Winder has a different story or way of being winded.

See also

• Fruit by the Foot
• Black sesame roll
• Joray Fruit Rolls
• Fruit Gushers
• Sunkist Fun Fruits

References

• New York Times
• General Mills Brand History
• Fruit Corners Brand History (General Mills) - Archive.org Mirror