Chick-O-Stick
Chick-O-Stick is a candy produced by the Atkinson Candy Company[1] that has been manufactured since the 1950s. It is made primarily from peanut butter, granulated sugar, corn syrup, and toasted coconut, with colorings and preservatives added. There is also a sugar-free version of the candy.
Chick-O-Stick is an orange stick of varying length and thickness, dusted with ground coconut.[1] The interior of the stick is honeycombed with peanut butter[1] and the orange hardened syrup/sugar mixture that also forms the shell. When eaten fresh, the candy is dry and brittle, but it has a tendency to draw moisture and become hard and chewy if left uneaten for a long period. Chick-O-Stick is available in 0.36-ounce (10 g), 0.70-ounce (20 g), 1.0-ounce (28 g), and 2.0-ounce (57 g) sizes, as well as bags of individually wrapped bite-sized pieces.
Chick-O-Sticks are vegan[2] and are one of the few products that the Atkinson Candy Company's makes in a full-size. Most other products made by this company come in bite size or Halloween size.[3]
Packaging and name
Chick-O-Stick's original wrapper featured a stylized cartoon of a chicken wearing a cowboy hat and a badge in the shape of the Atkinson logo. The chicken is absent from the more recent wrapper; some commentators have indicated that it contributed to confusion over whether the Chick-O-Stick was candy or a chicken-flavored cracker. The Atkinson Candy Company's website states that one of their sales guys just "came up with the name one day, and well, it just stuck." The company had once written in correspondence that they felt the Chick-O-Stick "resembled fried chicken" and that contributed to the name.[1]