Fruit Roll-Ups
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Fruit Roll-Ups is a brand of fruit snack 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 candy, 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 very similar to Fruit by the Foot (also a General Mills Snack). In the United States, retail Fruit Roll-Ups are sold in boxes of 10.
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[edit] History
Fruit Roll-Ups were originally developed by James F. Kamman and his team at the Research and Development Department of General Mills. Fruit Roll-Ups evolved from a food preservation practice called fruit leather.
General Mills introduced Fruit Roll-Ups to a limited text market in 1980 with four flavors: Strawberry, Cherry, Apple, and Apricot. Each roll was enclosed in a foil pouch with eight pouches packaged in a carton. All flavors were made, in part, with real fruit.
In 1981, General Mills added Fruit Roll-Ups, still in its test market phase, to its "Fruit Corners" line of "wholesome" snacks. The Fruit Corners line would grow to include Snackin' Fruits, Fruit Wrinkles, Fruit Bars, Tropical Fruit Bars, Fruit Swirl Bars and Pudding Roll-Ups.
Fruit Corners Fruit Roll-Ups went national in January, 1983 with all four original flavors. General Mills added grape and orange flavors in 1984, raspberry in 1985, and watermelon in 1986.
General Mills phased out the Fruit Corners brand in late 1987. The company sought to expand its Betty Crocker brand from its cake-and-pie roots to include packaged, processed snack foods. General Mills folded Fruit Roll-Ups and the surviving Fruit Corners products into the Betty Crocker line in all North American markets by mid-1988.
General Mills has either discontinued or heavily reformulated most of the original Fruit Roll-Ups flavors from the Fruit Corners era. Only strawberry remains.
[edit] Advertising
Fruit Corners Fruit Roll-Ups were heavily marketed on television in the United States throughout the early 1980's. Most spots featured the tag line "Fruit Corners Fruit Roll-Ups: Real fruit and fun, rolled up in one."
Commercial spots for Betty Crocker Fruit Roll-Ups are common on "Saturday morning" style cartoon shows in 2008.
[edit] Shape
Fruit Roll-Ups were originally square in shape, but are now shaped like a parallelogram.
According to urban legend, this is because the production process for the original square-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. The truthiness of 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 "tongue tattoos".
[edit] Flavors
Fruit Corners Fruit Roll-Ups flavors:
- Apricot (February, 1980)
- Apple (February, 1980)
- Cherry (February, 1980)
- Strawberry (February, 1980)
- Grape (January, 1984)
- Orange (November, 1984)
- Raspberry (July, 1985)
- Watermelon (June, 1986)
Betty Crocker Fruit Roll-Ups current flavors:
- Blastin' Berry Hot Colors
- Cherry Orange Wildfire
- Crazy Pix Cool Chix Berry Wave
- Crazy Pix Wild Ones Blastin' Berry
- Electric Blue Raspberry
- Flavor Wave
- Strawberry
- Strawberry Kiwi Kick
- Sunberry Burst
- Tropical Tie-Dye
- Electric Yellow
- Sizzlin'Red
- Screamin'Green
Betty Crocker sells Fruit Roll-Ups in single-flavor boxes and flavor variety packs.
[edit] Similar Products
Joray Fruit Rolls is another fruit leather candy product from New York that precedes the General Mills production of Fruit Roll-Ups.
