9 discontinued snack foods we wish they’d bring back

It’s easy to look back on the past and feel a pang of nostalgia. We all long to revisit the places of our youth, but, unfortunately, many of those sites are long gone. Just like that old drive-in or favorite store at the mall, there’s another major source of nostalgia: food products that are gone but not forgotten.

9 Discontinued Snack Foods We Wish They’d Bring Back (Gallery)

It’s hard to look back on the foods of our youth without getting a little sentimental. But while you can always fix yourself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with the crusts cut off just like mom used to make, there are plenty of food products that simply don’t exist anymore. In the 1970s, for example, dozens of insanely sugary cereals hit supermarket shelves, but those who long for one more taste of Strawberry Crazy Cow-flavored cereal milk are sadly out of luck.

Nostalgia for the ‘90s is at an all-time high right now, perhaps because millennials, who came of age during those heady and carefree days of the Clinton administration and Nicktoons, are beginning to face issues that are decidedly adult, like 401(k)s and babies taking over their Facebook walls. There were some truly awesome snacks available during the 1990s, so much so that the decade could be called a golden age of junk food. Folks who came of age in the 1960s most likely don’t look back and wish that Mixed Vegetable Jell-O for Salads was still on grocery store shelves. But by the time the ‘90s rolled around, food companies had gotten the whole snack food thing right, so most of the best discontinued food products came out of that decade - but not all.

Thankfully, food companies are beginning to take notice that there’s a major call for products that haven’t been stocked by grocery stores in over a decade. Within the past couple years a handful of once-discontinued foods and drinks, including Zima, Jolt Cola, Surge, French Toast Crunch, and Crispy M&Ms, have found their way back to shelves. The odds are good that there are more to follow.

Most of the following products simply didn’t sell as well as they should have, and were brand extensions that weren’t vital to the success of the company. But they certainly worked their way into our hearts, and we wish that they’d come back to us. This time, we won’t take their availability for granted. Read on for nine food products that we really wish would return to grocery store aisles.

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