Snack Brands Sell Mystery Flavors And Ask Shoppers To Guess; Pretzel Bag Notes Its Own Mystery Has Never Come With A Prize

CHICAGO—What is the biggest flavor in food and beverage right now? According to Food Dive, it is a mystery. Chips Ahoy!, SunnyD and Hi-Chew are among the brands selling limited-edition snacks this fall without disclosing the flavor, and asking shoppers to guess.

The Chips Ahoy! challenge comes with a $25,000 prize, and Mondelez plans to reveal the answer on Halloween. The cookie launched through TikTok Shop with mystery-inspired packaging. Innova Market Insights found 25% of consumers say discovering new flavors makes food fun.

Shoppers have responded with forensic seriousness. "I am getting notes of cookie," said a fictional sophomore in Evanston, Illinois, who has eaten nine packages for research. "Possibly a cookie that has been to the fair. I am not ready to commit to the fair."

said a fictional sophomore in Evanston, Illinois, who has eaten nine packages for research.

This reporter, who weighs the same family-size bag of pretzel twists on the same kitchen scale every month, would like to note a longer-running mystery in the snack aisle that has also never been announced on the front of a package. The Pretzel was 16 ounces in 2023. It is 14 ounces now. Where did the two ounces go? No prize has ever been offered for a correct guess, and the Judge (my scale) has asked me to stop bringing it up at dinner.

Brand marketers stressed that a mystery flavor still has to taste good and fit the brand. A fictional flavor scientist in New Jersey agreed. "A great mystery flavor is familiar, delightful and slightly unplaceable," she said. "A bad one is just a flavor nobody wanted to put their name on."

Other categories are watching closely. A fictional frozen pizza brand said it is considering a mystery topping, and a fictional bagged salad said it already has one and would prefer customers not look too closely.

The Pretzel's next weigh-in is Sunday. It has not been told what is being measured. Neither, frankly, have I.

Celeste Abernathy covers packaged goods and weighs everything first. Judge, her kitchen scale, assisted. More from Celeste Abernathy ›

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