Sour Patch Kids

This is my new favorite candy. If you were a kid in the 80s, you will be very familiar with this product but since I was a teenager when it first launched in the U.S., I never really paid attention to it...until yesterday when I tried it for the first time. It is delicious! Move over Mike & Ike, there's a new kid in town:

Sour Patch Kids are a chewy candy with a coating of sour sugar. They come in packs with four colors and flavors: red (Raspberry), orange (Orange), yellow (Lemon),and green (Lime). It also has a limited edition flavor, brown, that is not in original packs. One of the driving forces behind the brand's growth was its success in cinemas, and even now it is a staple for moviegoers. Today, Sour Patch Kids are a top selling sour brand in North America, next to Sour Skittles and Sour Gummi Tape.

Sour Patch Kids were originally called Mars Men, little aliens that were sold for one cent (U.S.) each. The product's inspiration and design came at a time when UFO sightings were exciting the Western world. Invading aliens from Mars were modeled into the shape of the product and specially coated with sour coating.

The process of creating the sour-coated soft candy was developed in the late 1970s, and this "alien" approach was the first candy to be tested with it. It is believed that Frank Galatolie, then national sales manager of a distributor called Jaret, came up with the idea of sour products in soft confectionery. Galatolie then developed the candy by having Canadian manufacturing colleagues experiment with regular gummy products, adding a coating of sour sanding.

This new product was first released in the U.S. by Jaret in 1985. In the mid-1980s, Cabbage Patch Kids dolls were exceedingly popular, and is believed to be the inspiration for product's name. The child character on the original packaging was a cartoon representation of Galatolie's son, Scott.

In the U.S. and Canada, the Sour Patch brand is offered in the Kids flavor mix variety, an assortment of child-shaped lemon, lime, orange and raspberry candies. In the U.S. market, several fruit-shaped flavors are offered, including watermelon, orange, cherry, lemon, grape, and lime. These flavors are offered either individually or as a Sour Patch Fruits mix.

Many Sour Patch Kids flavors, with the exception of the sour sanding, are identical to those of the Swedish Fish gummy candy. An identical formula is used to produce like-colored varieties of both candies by their manufacturer, Cadbury Adams.

The candies are currently available throughout the United States, Canada, and some areas of Western Europe. The products enjoy particularly strong success along the U.S. East Coast, and in the New York City metropolitan market, where the original Sour Patch candies were first introduced.

In 2007, Sour Patch launched two new sub-brands. Sour Patch Extreme comes in dual-flavored head shapes with a more sour coating. Sour Patch Xploderz are center-filled sour-coated candies with a national launch announced for December 2007.

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