CHICAGO, June 5 (UPI) -- It all started with Reindeer Poop.
Ian Walker of The Essential Box Co. of London has expanded a line of plastic jelly bean dispensers to include cows, pigs and chickens as part of a marketing trend in the candy industry aimed at getting people to think of sweets as more than just a treat.
The cartoonish animal-shaped containers dispense jelly beans -- preferably brown -- from their backsides by pushing down on the legs. The original Reindeer Poop has been joined by the Oops a-daisy (the cow), The Little Pecker (a chicken based on a small toy Walker had as a child) and a number of other plastic animals, several of which also are available in key chain versions.
The 4-inch dispensers can also be filled with M&Ms, Nerds and other small candies by flipping up the head.
Gimmicks, contests, toys and flashy packaging were the norm at the annual Candy Expo at McCormick Place, which runs through Thursday.
MasterFoods USA, a/k/a Mars, makers of StarBurst Fruit Chews and Skittles introduced a mystery flavor contest that will have kids heading for chewtheclue.com to enter a $1 million contest to successfully identify the mystery candy's taste.
"It's a good way of keeping kids entertained," company spokeswoman Marlene Machut said.
Fantazzmo fun stuff LLC of Schaumburg, Ill., has a number of bizarre-looking containers for mixing Pixie Stix and dispensing Nerds that can be clipped to a key chain or belt loop. Others snap open to reveal a sucker, eliminating the problem of how to keep half-licked lollipops clean.
Among the really new items on the floor were a line of cookie-candy combinations from Mars -- Snickers, Milky Way, Twix and M&Ms resting on a chocolate or vanilla cookie base -- and Kimmie Candy Co.'s Sunbursts, candy-coated sunflower kernels touted as a sweet treat for the health conscious.
For those who love fudge but can't make the butter and cocoa congeal properly, there's Minute Fudge. Just add butter and water and stick it in the microwave.
Toxic Waste anyone? Family Sweets Candy Co. Inc. of Winston-Salem, N.C., has a candy so sour, it comes in a miniature 55-gallon drum complete with hazard warnings.
Podiatrist Mark Wolpa of Berkeley, Calif., had been dabbling in chocolate for years, making gifts for his patients when he started thinking about gummies. The result is Stinky Feet, a foot-shaped gummy candy in sour apple and cinnamon, that has been picked up by NECCO candies. Wolpa, chief of podiatric surgery at Alta Bates Hospital, calls his candy company Toe-rific Candy. Among the chocolate offerings are Mazel Toe, Mistle Toe and Heart & Sole.
Brand New Products LLC of Chicago has done the Pez dispenser bigger, much bigger. The company has come out with foot-tall dispensers that expel a whole package of Pez at a time. The giant containers are topped by plastic Snoopy, Homer Simpson, Charlie Brown or Santa heads. Both Snoopy and Santa have a musical chip.
Love mints in a tin but hate the rattle? Ovalette of New Rochelle, N.Y., has a solution, Flip-a-Mint, which are packaged in a flat, oval, plastic container.
In the everything-old-is-new-again category, Tootsie Roll will be producing miniature Tootsie Pops and Double Bubble will offer what it calls "dynamic duos" for Christmas and Halloween -- bubble gum that combines two flavors in each package.
New Choice Food Inc. of Irwindale, Calif., has rethought konjac candies, those gel cups about the size of a single-serving coffee-creamer container recalled by the Food and Drug Administration because they pose a choking hazard.
New Choice has reshaped the containers to resemble apostrophes and altered the consistency to prevent the jellied fruit snacks from getting stuck in a person's throat. The company also has introduced a shelf-stable yogurt-and-fruit snack in individual containers that look like single-serve coffee creamers.
Not every sweet at the show will contribute to the nation's obesity problem. Among the sugar-free products on display were Schuster Marketing Corp.'s Blitz Mini's wintergreen and peppermint mints in key chain containers and Kent Confectionery Inc.'s Relax strawberry gum.
