Candy Review: Skittles Pop'd CREEPY CRUNCH Candies
I like to pre-scout my Halloween candy. I gotta plan my attack. See what's coming down the river.
Thanks to an army of social media 'candy addicts' or 'snack o masters' or 'Johnny Likes da Candy' in those early summer months (I'm talking July) I can scan the webs of the world and see what to expect. I'm not totally lazy, I do first passes myself on all the major candy manufacturers websites and then rely on the candy army for the things I missed and/or that they have inside info on.
So in my Halloween candy prep I discovered that Skittles was coming out with a new "Skittles Creepy Crunch" which is a division of their "Skittles Pop'd" line o' candies.
What are Skittles Pop'd you ask?
Skittles Pop'd are freeze dried Skittles. That's it.
I somehow missed the 'freeze dried' craze. Maybe it's because I haven't been to a State Fair in some time: the pioneering entity of deep frying and freeze drying foods. So though it started there among the 4H cattle shows and deep fried Snickers bars, the freeze dried craze got popular enough that major candy companies finally sat up and said "Heyyyyyy... we can freeze dry our own candy and charge twice as much!" And here we are.
So Skittles Pop'd Creepy Crunch come in 5 flavors: "Ghostly Lime," "Cursed Apple," "Blood Orange," "Beastly Blackberry," and uh--- just "Red Raspberry?"
Let's take a second and unpack those names/colors.
"Ghastly Lime" IS actually green which totally makes sense. Hey, Lime was the original green Skittle, so it has OG First Dibs. It seems the Skittles Naming Team didn't go with the alliterative approach. It could have been "Lurking Lime" or "Lycanthrope Lime" (I'm just spit ballin' here) but "Ghastly Lime" works if we're not going that way.
Then we've got "Cursed Apple." That's on point. Disney has really upped their 'poisoned apple' Snow White merch around Halloween so that naming works. The color is white-ish? Maybe light grey? I get it, green was taken and grey is the color of tombstones, and white is the color of ghosts, so it gets a pass.
"Blood Orange" is next. Nice work using "blood" in an innocent way. A blood orange IS named exactly that, but it's got the alternate spooky meaning. That Skittle is orange, which is perfect not only for the fruit color but it's also THE Halloween color.
"Beastly Blackberry." Hm, wait. NOW we're doing the alliteration? It's fine. It works. It's purple, which matches the IRL fruit.
And then there's "Red Raspberry." Um... what happened? Did you run out time, Naming Team?
Did Dave (it was Dave who had the Raspberry account, right?) --did Dave call in sick when the assignment was due?
The obvious choice is "Dead Raspberry" or if we're trying for matching consonants we could go with "Reaper Raspberry" or "Rotten Raspberry." Somebody dropped the ball. This is a major missed opportunity.
And I'm going to use that last sentence to talk about a related issue: the look of the bag.
If I didn't know what to look for (see the first paragraph on pre-scouting), I would have totally missed these on the shelves. They look just like alllll the other fruit-flavored zip-bagged candies in that section. The purple color just makes them blend in to the sea of SweeTarts, Sour Punches, Ropey McRopes, etc.
The grocery store I found them in (in August) had just started building a Halloween candy section, but even in that section they didn't jump out at me as "Hey! I'm a new Halloween candy!" Look at this shelf pic...
In fact the only other Halloween indicators are the VERY small "Creepy Crunch" title at the top of the bag and the little witch hats on the candies.
It all feels VERY rushed and I can't help but think that either these were rushed to market or the Halloween candy packaging budget was already spent.
But enough of all that, what are the candies actually like to EAT?
All the candies have the same purple-colored filing. It makes each individual skittle look like a little macaroon, or maybe a tiny colored cheeseburger (where the burger is purple and the bun is the Skittles' individual color).
All the flavors feel more intense, more-so than if you experienced them as regular Skittles.
BLOOD ORANGE:
Crunchy and tangy. Think orange Pez or orange TicTacs. Same flavor profile.
RED RASPBERRY:
For a mediocre name, the raspberry is very forward and robust.
GHASTLY LIME:
Lime! Lime doesn't show up in Halloween candies too often (usually replaced with Green Apple, or caramel apple, or even watermelon). It's refreshing to have it here. As one of the original skittle flavors, it's like a warm comforting blanket of flavor. If you know Skittles lime, it's the same lime you know and love.
CURSED APPLE:
And, hey! There's the apple I just mentioned! What a delight that we get both lime AND apple. I'm a huge fan of apple flavors during the spooky times, so I'm delighted this is here.
BEASTLY BLACKBERRY:
Blackberry. Also not a usual flavor but it's deep berry flavor makes it a great choice for fruity-but-spooky. Also it's a DARK purple--- makes it spookier.
OVERALL:
Eating these is an interesting experience. They feel lighter than normal Skittles so when you grab a handful you may grab more than normal just because of density. When chewing these, they definitely crunch, but then there's a magic dissipation that happens and they sort of melt and crumble to dust in your mouth at the same time. Kinda like eating a puffy cheese doodle. It's what food scientists call "vanishing caloric density." Look it up. It's a thing.
Your hands WILL get covered with Skittle-dust (like a cheese doodle). I found I ate way more of these in one sitting because of the magic crunching/melting. There comes a point in my consumption of regular Skittles where I feel 'done.' That feeling happened much later.
It's odd that Skittles put these special Halloween versions out at all. To my knowledge Skittles Shriekers have been out for 5 years now, and are doing well. I, personally, buy a bag of treat sizes to give out on Halloween, and some self-serve packs for, well, myself. I find the sour flavors and the Halloween packaging (orange & black and a grim reaper screaming on the bag) more to my liking.
Though the novelty of the crunchy freeze dried Skittles is fun to try, it's not a keeper for me. Plus the mediocre bag design. And then there's all that candy dust (I forgot to mention that when you're finished eating all the Skittles, you'll have what feels like a quarter bag of purple powder to throw away. Or pour into your mouth. Or use for baking bread. YMMV.
MOST IMPORTANT of all--- they're REALLY expensive.
I can get an equal number of Skittles Shriekers for half the price a bag of these cost.
Like I've said before: I love hunting down the new Halloween candies and sampling them.
But there are some, like Skittles Pop'd Creepy Crunch, that I just won't be returning to this season or next.
I'm still a Skittles Shriekers fan.
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