December 7, 2022 • 48 mins
This brand of prepackaged pastries, ostensibly meant to be toasted, is a success story of marketing and science. Anney and Lauren dig into the history of Pop Tarts.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to Saber production of iHeart Radio. I'm
Any and I'm Lauren Vogelbam, and today we have an
episode for you about pop Tarts pop Tarts pop Yes, yeah,
not a sponsor, not a sponsor, no, no, any reason
this one was on your mind, Lauren, Oh it could
have been anything. Um yeah, yeah, I'm I love that
(00:32):
y'all are getting to experience, like my slow descent into
complete chaos. Um yeah, maybe maybe the last time that
I was searching for brands, um and I and and
and and we landed on pop Rocks. M hmm, there
(00:53):
there was Yeah. I was like, whoo, different quest, different day,
and now is the day. Now is the they And
this one, as with many of these brand episodes, is
super fun. It goes all over the place. Um, it's
just They're They're always such a delight to research are
(01:17):
And then I feel and then I feel weird about
about feeling so like like enthused about a commercial product.
I'm like, oh, man, capitalism so good is the season? Lauren? Heartwarming? Well,
(01:38):
it's just so interesting though, Like there's something that is
fascinating to me about someone, a company, an entity, or
just people who work for that company, who are so
into a product, who think so deeply about all of
the marketing and all the flavors, all of these different
(02:00):
ideas that they tried, which, by the way, we're going
to discuss they tried a lot of different things with
pop tarts. They just really fascinating to me. Yeah, that
like pop tarts of all things, like something that that
is to us um or I mean to me anyway,
so kind of like back of mind and and benign.
(02:23):
Like it's just not really like I'm never really thinking
about pop tarts. M Wow. We have a great Jerry
Seinfeld factor ended this one about that. But yeah, I don't.
I think I've talked about this before. I don't really
I don't dislike pop tarts, but they're definitely not my thing.
(02:45):
They've never been my thing except for a very very
brief period in middle school. I think, oh middle school. Wow.
I wasn't allowed to have them when I was growing up.
It was one of those like banned processed foods that
my dad was like, no, um, like jarred cheese, whiz yes,
pop tarts ridiculous, which meant that when I went to college,
(03:10):
I was like, Okay, I need to try all of
these um, and I did have like a like a
little bit like a couple of years in college where
I think the round sugar and cinnamon non frosted pop
tarts those were my thing. And I don't think I
ever heated them up. Just yeah, I didn't either, but
I wish I had. I think I would have liked
(03:32):
them more if I had. I there was a kind
of I I always found that that there was something
about that like sort of chemical flavor that you get
from them that sort of intensifies when they're warm, and
I didn't appreciate that. So Okay, Well it's interesting because
I when I went through my pop dart phase, strawberry
(03:53):
was definitely my favorite, UM, but I ate them cold.
I went through a much bigger toaster strudal thing, which
is hilarious because I read so many articles about like
why have no other products been able to compete with
pop tarts? And toast shrewdle was a big one where
the like, no, it didn't didn't. No. But when I
(04:14):
got to college, um, a lot of people I met
loved pop tarts and I loved hearing them rate the
flavors and do you heat it up or do you
not heat it up? How do you cut it? Do
you not cut it? Those preferences. I just very much
enjoyed hearing about, Oh my gosh, and people do love them,
(04:39):
oh my goodness, which I guess brings us to our
question pop tarts. What are they? Well? Uh, pop tarts
are a brand of sweet, prepackaged pastries um that are
(05:00):
hypothetically meant to be warmed in a pop up toaster
before eating as a breakfast food or a snack. They
come in a number of flavors and formats, but generally
what you're you're talking about when you're talking about pop
tart is a is a flat rectangle of um like firmed,
crumbly cookie type dough, like like like biscuit type dough,
(05:22):
maybe um, sort of small like like like three by
five inches that's a scant eight by thirteen centimeters um uh.
And there's like a thin layer of jam type filling
sandwiched in in the middle um, and maybe a layer
of stiff icing topping one side for extra sweetness in
or flavor and or visual interest. Uh. They come packaged too,
(05:44):
in a little foiled plastic envelope. They do not necessarily
taste like food um. But they're sweet and and filling
and delicious in a in a kind of sciency way. Um,
they're like a Okay, have have y'all seen those those
medieval illustrations of animals where it's clear that the illustrator
(06:10):
had never seen a lion or you know whatever it
is that it was in person, but you know someone
had given them the general concept and like they did
their best. M h yeah. Pop tarts are like that.
But with pastries. Um, they're almost entirely unlike handpies, but
(06:32):
the general concept is there and like blessom, they're enthusiastic. Yeah,
once again on point I agree. I think like I
can't wait until we get to some of the stuff
in the history section, but a lot of people who
love pop tarts. I love them almost because of this.
It's so like enthusiastic, bright and so different from the
(06:54):
rest of the breakfast landscape when they came out. Certainly
yeah uh yeah. The Kellogg Company manufacturers pop tarts. Um,
they have a dizzy ng array of flavors historically speaking. Um,
right now, the ones that are featured on the brand's website. Um, okay,
(07:16):
all right, first, I guess the crusts come in generally
to formats either like a plane uh, slightly salted pastry crust,
um like like sweet like like tiny bit of salt
in there um, or like a cocoa pastry crest. Yeah.
Fillings currently include the fruit related category um strawberry and blueberry,
(07:36):
which come either unfrosted or frosted then frosted, cherry frosted grape,
frosted raspberry, and frosted wild delicious wild berry. Yeah. Um,
I you know it's wild delicious. Uh. They're also um,
(07:58):
simply frosted harvest strawberry pop tarts, which are made without
artificial dyes, and they use regular corn syrup instead of
high fructose corn syrup. Yeah, so much more natural. Um,
and they are made with non GMO ingredients. Not there's
anything wrong with GMO as a category, but that's a
(08:21):
different episode. Yeah, okay, um. And then all right, so
those are the fruit related flavors. Then we've got like
the more straightforwardly dessert related flavors um, including the aforementioned
brown sugar and cinnamon, which also comes frosted or unfrosted
then uh frosted, chocolate chip, frosted, chocolate fudge, frosted confetti cupcake,
(08:43):
frosted Cookies and cream, frosted hot fudge, Sunday frosted s'mores, eggo,
frosted maple flavor yeah okay, um, and snickerdoodle which is
(09:04):
unfrosted but does have a sprinkle of cinnamon sugar on top. Wow. Yeah, okay, okay.
There are also some some like limited seasonal flavors. Right now,
frosted gingerbread is out, and I've also seen frosted sugar cookie.
And I am so confused about cookie flavored pastry, Like
(09:30):
what is that combination of words just doesn't mm hm,
because like I understand some mores filling, right, like there's
like marshmallow, there's like chocolate stuff like okay, like that's
like that's but but what is what is it filled
with listeners? I did read a couple of like tasting
(09:54):
notes that people would taste all of the current flavors
and it was fascinating. Um, some moores frequently came out
on top, So I don't know, yeah, listeners again, yeah,
uh yep, yep. They also The brand also makes pop
(10:15):
tarts bites, which are little bags of bite sized pastries
and they come in a few of the popular flavors,
plus also frosted strawberry banana. Yeah. They're also pop tarts crisps,
which are like like skinnier sticks. Um that I guess
are crisp crispier interesting, I don't know, um right in
(10:39):
uh yeah, and it various times, you know, they've done
tie ins with other brands, like, um, Disney, they did
a Disney Princess jewel berry uh huh um. They did
a tie in with the US Olympic team, um, which
was also a mixed berry flavor and it came in
gold colored foil packets. Um. And then Hello Kitty Mio berry.
(11:02):
Oh yeah, of course, yeah yeah, and they sometimes I
remember where they used to do those like fancy drawings
on them. Oh sure, yeah. I think maybe the gingerbread
ones have like a little like printed gingerbread man on them. Um.
And they also come with instructions for making a little
(11:23):
gingerbread pop tart house. Yeah okay, alright, sure. I mean
you can also make similarly shaped hand pies at home
if if you if that's the thing that you want
to do. Um. But if you sold them and called
them pop tarts, then Kellogg's would probably come after you. Yes,
(11:43):
and we wipe our hands of it. Yeah, we warned, Well,
what about the nutrition. Okay, a pop tart is a
calorically dense food. Um, a lot of show ger like,
like about half of your daily recommended intake of added sugars. Um.
(12:08):
Got got got some fats in there too, not much
in the way of protein. Has a few minerals that
they add in. That's nice, um, And definitely a treat
because of the sugar, and treats are nice. Treats are
nice if you like pop tarts, eat pop tarts man,
m m yeah. Um. I will say. Research into one
of the preservatives that's commonly used in processed foods, including
(12:31):
most pop tarts, UM called hurt beautile hydro quineome. I
didn't look that up. It's you can. You can also
call it tbh Q because that's a lot easier to
call something. Um. Yeah, but yeah, it might damp in
your immune system. Um. That's probably not great. Um. And
(12:54):
this is one of the many reasons that nutritionists will
generally recommend choosing ash are frozen products over shelf stable
processed products whenever you can. But you know, I I
doubt you need to worry about it too. Deeply unless
you are eating a number of pop tarts that is
(13:15):
worrisome on its own level. Indeed, indeed, will we do
have some numbers? Goodness, we do, and some of them
are quite astounding. Uh. Sales of pop tarts reached eight
hundred million dollars in twenty UM. According to some sources,
(13:37):
Kellogg's sells more than two billion billion pop tarts each year,
and this is pretty amazing since they're primarily distributed in
the US, like mostly the US, but they are also
in Canada, the UK, and Ireland and at one point Australia,
New Zealand, though I read that they were discontinued there
(13:59):
and then maybe we're like recontinued there again, listeners, Right
in two thousand five they stopped being available there, but wow, yeah,
and especially, oh my goodness, if they have other flavors
than the ones that I've just outlined, like like, oh,
let me know, is there is there a vegemite pop tart? Oh?
I can only hope there is a very popularly circulated number.
(14:25):
Um that as of sales of pop tarts had gone
up every thirty two years, which was like unheard, every
every year four thirty two years two years exactly yes,
which is it's very very impressive but surprising to me. Yeah,
(14:47):
um right right, because was was kind of after a
lot of sales of similar products had been kind of slagging,
um slagging, slacking going down. There you go, um, we're
record world record time. The record for the largest box
of pop tarts was set in spring of h Kellogg's
(15:10):
and seven eleven teamed up to create like a like
a large refrigerator sized box um and then filled it
with one thousand, three hundred and thirty one pounds of
pop tarts pounds. Yeah, yeah, okay yeah. The pop tarts
in question were then donated to the North Texas Food Bank. Okay,
(15:34):
there you go. Wow. Um. I found this interesting. This
wasn't a super scientific study our survey, but it found
that half of pop tart consumers don't toast them. Okay
yeah yeah. And according to Country Living, Walmart sees a
(15:55):
dramatic increase of the sale of strawberry pop tarts specifically
during hurricanes, um, like, alongside things like bread, water, and batteries.
Since these pop charts are pretty shell stable and don't
require heating. I just thought that was really interesting. Yeah
m hm, Well, the history is quite interesting too. It is,
(16:18):
it is, and we are going to get into that
as soon as we get back from a quick break
for a word from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank
you sponsored, Yes, thank you. So Yes, the tradition of
handheld pies is thousands of years old. Which, yes, you
(16:40):
can argue about pop charts and whether they qualified, but
I would say they are in that vain somewhat. Yeah. Yeah,
Like like I said, like like they're they're doing their best.
They're so enthusiastic, they are doing their best. And uh, honestly,
the or story is fascinating, it's really really interesting. Okay.
(17:03):
So post cereals invented what would go on to inspire
the pop tart in the nineteen sixties, but there were
several steps along the way. Um, and this was like
kind of key, I guess, you know. During the fifties
and sixties was when all those kind of sciency foods
are coming out, um, and pop charts was very much,
(17:26):
very much in that group that category. And yeah, speaking
of one of the biggest steps they had to figure
out to make pop tarts was how to keep the
fruit filling from spoiling. Mm hmmm. So the post research
and Development department figured out a way to adapt the
same technology they used in things like dog foods to
(17:48):
zog food baggaging I should say, um to inhibit bacteria
growth and prevent spoilage. So they would wrap the food
in the spoil and it would keep it very fresh. Um.
The wrapped pastries would be easily shipped and didn't need
to be refrigerated. Also very important during this time, um okay.
So Post announced their toaster prepared breakfast pastry in nineteen
(18:13):
sixty three or nineteen sixty four. They called them Country
squares okay um, and they were intended to be a
compliment to Cereal, which I find fascinating going back to
your point earlier, jeez. But they jumped the gun a
little bit because their product wasn't quite ready for launch
(18:33):
when they announced it. And their competitor, Kellogg's heard this
announcement and got to work creating their own version, right.
They created their own version within six months. Um. They
developed their own similar product and rushed to get it
out before Post got theirs out. At first, Kellogg's product
(18:56):
was called fruit scones, but they were soon renamed pop charts,
which was a reference to Andy Warhol's popular pop art
movement at the time. Yeah. Yeah, the the pop art
movement in which Warhol was a major player along with
other artists like like Roy Lichtenstein. Um moment, the Museum
(19:18):
of Modern Art had just held in like nineteen sixty
two a symposium on the genre. It was like a
really big cultural phenomenon at the time, and so so
the phrase pop art would have been really front of
mind for a lot of Americans right right in that moment.
And I cannot believe that I never had and put
that pun together. Me too, me too, It's so fun. Um. Also,
(19:45):
I believe that my previous note was was off. I
was about to say, camera, we're not on camera where
I mean, I guess we're talking to each other via camera.
But um, okay uh Annie's note about the cereal Um.
Before we were cording, I was talking about how it
always cracks me up watching commercials for products like pop Tarts,
(20:05):
because like it'll be a whole heck in full breakfast
with like a couple of pop Tarts smack in the
center of it, like like as though you were going
to eat like a bowl of cereal, a glass of milk,
a glass of orange juice and to pop tarts, and
that is going to be what you're up to. Yeah, daily,
that's what gets me. That's like a special breakfast maybe.
(20:27):
But the implication is there, like this, this is what
a balanced breakfast is. This is how pop tarts are
part of a balanced breakfast. So this is normal. And
I'm like, yes, okay, all right, so yeah, yeah, yeah,
we we often do this, Lauren. We always have these
conversations right before that we should really just include in
(20:48):
the podcast the nature of how we record it is
it is. But anyway, yes, uh So. The first flavors
of pop tarts were blueberry, strawberry, apple current, and brown
sugar cinnamon, and they were meant to be cut diagonally
along the dotted lines. Yeah, and they were pretty much
(21:11):
an immediate hit, to the point consumers wiped them out.
It was sold out within two weeks after its first shipment,
and they were first introduced in test markets in Ohio,
specifically Cleveland. But after this like great reception, they went
national in nineteen Um. I do love the pop Tart
(21:33):
official website. Uh is very snarky in a way that's fun.
Um And they make fun of apple currents as like,
no one knew what it was, so we changed the name.
It's just it's just a fun little company website. Uh.
And speaking of it's very very interesting to me that
(21:54):
this official website, Kellogg's Timeline of pop Tarts on it
claims that the companies chairman tasked some employees with creating
a breakfast pastry riff on jam and toast in nine three.
So that doesn't really it doesn't quite match up, is what. Yeah,
it sort of takes that like like mercenary pop tart
(22:15):
development versus post Um. Yes, which is another interesting thing.
You can read a lot of interviews with a man
named Bill Post, who is not related to the Post company.
Very confusing by the way, and he was at the
heart of coming up with the process of making these
(22:37):
pop charts these pastries. According to him, Kellogg contacted him
in nineteen s four, so again the dates are a
little messy, asking to see some of the equipment that
Post used as the plant manager at Keebler, like the
Keebler rills Um because they wanted to design a product
for the toaster but couldn't quite gure it out. So
(23:01):
so he gets this question from Kellogg and postmind his
mind starts worrying, like, oh, I gotta figure this out,
And basically he arrived at stacking two sheeters on top
of each other and a sheeters like this device, each
one weighing about sixty tons that you used to make
(23:23):
kind of like dough in a in a line. Um,
and it allowed for stacking them on top of each other,
allowed for two dough sheets to come out with filling
inserted in between them. Um. And yeah, as with many
of these stories that we tell about these products, he
allegedly tested pop tarts out on his kids. It's okay,
is this any good? You're a target audience, and like, yeah,
(23:45):
that's some frosting. Yeah, yeah, right, m m. He also said.
Post also said that the reason that there are two
pop tarts in a package is purely economic because if
you put two in a package, especially in the early
days when they weren't quite sure how long the shelf
life was going to be, Uh, it cut the cost
in half because of the cost of the foils. Oh sure,
(24:08):
okay uh. And also it's worth noting pop tarts really
revolutionized how people viewed toasters, which had previously been pretty
much a single use item for toasting bread. Um, that
was it. People were big fans of the idea that
breakfast could be ready in thirty seconds just by popping
(24:28):
these tarts in the toaster. I mean, pop Tarts works
on multiple levels. I don't know if they planned that,
but it's kind of brilliant. It really is, it really is.
But yeah, after that, other companies were like, what else
can we put in the toaster? Yeah? Um, Because Kellogg's
(24:50):
rushed pop Darts out, they were still refining the product
in the early days, they hadn't had time to test
if frosting could withstand the toaster, so that's why at
first they were unfrosted. However, uh, when testing proved that
frosting could stand up to toasters, which was something else
Post was integral in. He he seems like somebody who
(25:12):
was just never deterred by like that will never work.
He was like, watch me, watch me, and my kids
want frosting on their pop tarts. Uh. Frosted pop Tarts
debuted in nineteen sixty seven. Sprinkles were added into the
equation in ninety, and by nineteen seventy three the product
(25:34):
came in nineteen flavors. Nineteen flavors. That's a That's another
thing we were talking about before we started recording, Like,
like the pop Tart humans play fast and loose with
big flavors. They're they are not afraid of innovation. They
do go for it, yep, enthusiastic. It's very very interesting.
(25:58):
We're gonna talk about that more later, but it's interesting
to me that they will introduce a flavor or a
product idea and within months will be like, yeah, yeah,
did worked on and then there's a group of people
who love it and like campaign to get it back.
Oh my gosh, um okay. As more women entered the
(26:20):
U S workforce in the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties,
sales of pop tarts jumped. And this is really interesting
because we've talked about that time period before. It's an
interesting intersection of people were really wanting healthier items, but
also convenience was so important. Um and and pop Tarts
was able to ride this kind of healthy train for
(26:41):
a while, which is something else we're going to talk about.
Over the years, Yeah, pop Tarts have been the source
of several lawsuits, some of which you we're gonna briefly cover.
One of the first took place in nineteen two when
a man sued Kellogg's after a pop tart got stuck
in his toaster and call fire. Yes, the case caught
(27:06):
national attention when a humor columnist wrote about a pop
tart catching fire in his own toaster. This was such
a story at a time. Texas A and M University
professor Joseph Delgado did a somewhat playful experiment in found
that strawberry pop tarts could produce flames over a foot
(27:26):
high when left in the toaster too long. Um, you
can find the you can find the study. It's complete
with pictures. It's actually it is really fun. Um. It
wasn't so fun for Kelloggs, though, because in a wave
of lawsuits and prompted Kellogg's to add this warning to
the product due to possible risk of fire, never leave
(27:47):
your toasting appliance or microwave unattended. And this whole thing
was sort of mocked in comedian Brian Reagan's bit pop
tarts shouldn't have instructions where he just reads the instructions
of pop tarts to comedic effect. Oh um, okay, so yes,
(28:10):
Kellogg's has tried a lot when it comes to pop
tart flavors. And different iterations of their products. Many that
did end up discontinued. Limited flavor offerings got going in
the nineteen nineties. Pop Tart crunch cereal was introduced, in
which it looks like wheaties but pop tarts okay, alright, sure,
(28:33):
go tarts I remember. Go Tarts, which was a thicker,
narrower product were introduced into thousands six, but we're discontinued
in two thousand and eight. They've also tried all kinds
of things when it comes to advertising, including a pop
Tart pop up in Times Square. Yeah had pop Tart sushi,
(28:55):
Yeah yeah, um and and there I found a whole
essay about the history of their marketing and it was
really fascinating. So if that's something you're into, I recommend
looking it up because they got some interesting There was
a lawsuit around that as well. M mm hmmm. The
nineties is also when pop Tarts started to go international,
(29:16):
first in the UK, where they were fairly successful, but
nowhere near like the US market. Again, listeners, please write in.
The US military dropped two point four million pop tarts
over Afghanistan in two thousand and one. This was not
part of the weapons program. Um. This This was part
(29:37):
of a program to deliver rations amidst the supply chain
cut offs that the US had instigated as part of
its war effort. UM. So the rations did also include
things like rice and beans, peanut butter, and jelly, and
they termed the pop tarts and ice breaker. That's a
direct quote to introduce the Afghan people to American food.
(30:01):
And that is the most embarrassing sentence I think I've
ever said. Yeah, m hm, and we've said many embarrassing
basically all of them. Yeah, So that happened. That did happen. Uh,
and then more lawsuits. Beginning in the early two housings,
(30:25):
pop Tarts became the target of health groups, especially around
children's health, for what they claimed were misleading advertising around
nutrition and fruit content. The Children's Advertising Review Units or
c a r U of the Council of Better Business
Bureaus called for the removal of the phrase made with
real fruit from pop tart packaging and advertising. Kelloggs agreed
(30:49):
to do so and modified their ads and packaging UM,
but this is still ongoing. In Kellogg's faced a five
million dollar lawsuit about how they're pop tarts didn't contain
enough strawberries Um. There was a similar lawsuit that same
year about their fudge line of pop tarts basing it
(31:10):
wasn't fudge, don't use the name fudge. Yeah, which is
which is I'm positive, which is why the EGO co
branded pop tarts are called maple flavored not a yeah.
But right now, the the strawberry pop tarts, this, this
class action lawsuit claims um shouldn't be called are misrepresenting
(31:32):
the amount of strawberry involved in the pop tarts because
there's also a significant amount of dried apple and dried
pear in addition to the dried strawberry. So yeah, yeah, um,
so well, I guess we'll check in on that one day. Um.
In April, the original neon cat, which is you know
(31:55):
that cat with a pop tart for a body that
leaves a rainbow trail because it's out of floats through space,
was first introduced. I always think of Andrew. I don't know, uh,
And the video has over one hundred million views and
I couldn't find any information about this, but it is
(32:16):
one of the icons on Google docs when that happens.
But yeah, it is a thing that did happen. I
I am, I can't I can't argue with yon Cat.
I'm just like, yeah, that's delightful. Well, not so delightful.
This fact in the disgusting pop tart sandwich meme took off.
(32:43):
I've never heard of this, but you know, I said
it was delightful, but it actually was very funny. But
basically what happened was this college student in Iowa posted
a picture of a pop tart with a slice of
American cheese on it with a caption that read, you
ain't from Iowa if You've never had had one of these,
and he was widely mocked, including by the police IWA police,
(33:06):
and it started this meme of you ain't from x
if you never had one of these with pop tarts
and basically trying to make the grossest okay sure um,
and the official pop Tarts Twitter account got involved, tweeting
where is the respect these days? And they responded a
(33:27):
lot like you can read a whole threat about it.
It is quite funny. Honestly, that's great, that's great. I
you know, I was curious when you I didn't I
didn't look into this one myself, so I was curious
when you wrote the note. I was like police, the
band like did the band police gett I have a police? Okay,
they might have. People were into it, people had opinions, thoughts,
(33:51):
this is a whole thing somehow bypass me. But yeah, yeah,
me too, Uh, but yeah, I'm pop tarts are really
really iconic in American culture, and these are just a
few examples that I thought of. In the two thousand
three film Elf Buddy, the Elf uses pop tarts as
a topping for spaghetti. A song about how pop tarts
(34:14):
with butter on them, how how amazing that combination is
was in a episode of Family Guy that is also
in there frequently Asked Questions section of their website, not
the Family Guy referenced specifically, but they're like, can you
put butter on a pop tart? And they're like yes,
um yeah uh. Just just another example when when the
(34:38):
iPhone six line came out in someone put together like
a size chart of the of the most newly available
iPads and iPhones and it included in the lineup a
pop tart for visual reference, Like like, this is the
standard that everyone will understand, right, we all know the size,
(35:00):
we all know the size of a pop tart. So
here's a really good visual guide. Wow, yeah, alright, Well
this brings us to our Jerry Siebel fact that I
alluded to. Uh, he's a huge fan of pop tarts.
He has this whole joke about pop tarts. Um and
in fact, you can see a making of the joke
(35:22):
feature on New York Times New York Times YouTube about
it where he just talks about how he wrote this
joke and it's actually really interesting. Um. But I mean
the premises basically growing up in the sixties as a kid,
when the pop tart arrived on the scene, it was
like a new science thing had been invented. It was
the best thing ever stopped trying, scientists, you're done, um,
(35:47):
like like that, that's enough science. You can all go
home now, right exactly, this is the best thing you've
ever done. Stop it. In fact, one of the lines
in there is don't you see it's over? They can't
go stale because they were never fresh. It's very very silly.
(36:08):
It's very very silly. But in early Steinfeld announced he
was working on an entire movie about pop tarts, the
origin of pop tarts, called Unfrosted for Netflix, and it
has quite a budget. So that is fascinating. Okay, I'm
(36:29):
telling you when people love a product that that brand
loyalty yeah, oh my gosh. And final note related I
wasn't even going to mention this, but I could not
after I read more about it. Um. In May of two,
pop Tarts re released a fan favorite flavor from the
(36:53):
early two thousand's, Frosted Great Um, and all of the
marketing was why too hathy. The campaign was called why
Too Great and involved a sweepstakes to win a y
two K time capsule. Winners not only received a year's
(37:14):
supply a year's supply of frosted Grape pop Tarts, but
to quote, seventy five dollars Steve Madden gift card to
purchase the perfect purple jelly sandals, a purple y two
K purs, one ten dollar Manic Panic gift card, some
purple grape lip gloss, a pack of metallic gel roll pins,
(37:37):
one pack of y two K butterfly hair clips, and
a purple hat. Look too many memories were awakened by
that list that I had to include it. I don't
think I've ever felt as tired from reading a sentence.
(38:01):
I was like, oh, my arthritis. Heck, I still got
my shel pins in my butterfly clips. Oh my gosh.
I At the same time, I cannot deny that that
Y two K Lauren would have been psyched to to
win that prize package. So so good on them, Good
(38:25):
on them. It was well, you can tell somebody from
the era was on the board of deciding what should
be in this prize back it was it was strange
to feel so seen by what is just a the
company sweepstakes. Yeah, we'll wrestle with that later again, right,
(38:50):
Like it's so it's so weird. I'm like, yeah, no,
capitalism is really doing its job because I found I
found this heartwarming. Like I was like, oh, that's so sweet,
Like that's like they really really got their finger on
it there. I feel like the people who won, they
had to post their best, like grape looks. I mean,
(39:15):
that's what. There's a part of me that wants to
look more into that, and a part of me that
desperately doesn't. Anyway, there are so many of these kinds
of stories with this company, this brand that we could
have included and didn't, Like, they are filled throughout their
history with this kind of stuff that's brilliant. I mean,
(39:40):
I mean, there's there's there's a reason other than like
it's it's sweet. It's it's it's got sugar and fat,
and it's it's kind of crumbly crunchy and it's you know,
so it's tasty, like like humans enjoy eating that kind
of thing. But there are clearly reasons like that alone
does not make an eye conic brand, and so and
(40:02):
this one is so iconic and oh it's really fascinating
to me. I also, um, I kind of failed to
get together the science of how they make pop Tarts
so um shelf stable, but um and I kind of
like it's one of those things that sometimes you're like, oh,
there's really nothing out there? Is there really nothing out there?
Or am I using the wround keywords um to to
(40:24):
try to search And so, I mean, you know, I'm
not a professional food scientist. This is not stuff that
I just know off the top of my head. So like,
maybe if I can, if I can dig into the
patents and figure out which ones actually like are applicable
to the pop Tarts brand, then I'll update y'all. Yes please,
(40:47):
what a wacky job? Yeah yeah, because so so far
I've found a couple that I think are for the
pop Tarts brand um that involve low moisture coding to
keep to keep the moisture contained. And also there's a
lot of talk about slurries as it relates to the filling.
(41:11):
That's fascinating. I love a good love a good slurry,
love good slurry. Yes, And we have listeners who are
very science minded, have some experience training. So if you
if you have the secrets of the pop yeah, I mean,
don't don't like break an n D A on our
our behalf. But that's all right. But you can give
(41:38):
us like a wink wink cloak in this direction. Yeah,
that'd be cool. Yeah. Well, I think that's what we
have to say about pop arts for now. It is.
We do have some listener mail for you, though, and
we are going to get into that as soon as
we get back from one more quick break for a
word from our sponsors. And we're back, Thank you sponsor, Yes,
(42:07):
thank you, And we're back with like a toaster yeah okay, okay,
So this first listener mail I adore because we love
(42:29):
hearing from multiple people from a family or from a
friend group or whatever writing in about about the same
things or what have you. It's just such a delight
to hear like, oh yeah, my mom wrote in about this,
Let me clarify, let me out of this. It's wonderful,
genuinely is so good. Yes, so we have one of
(42:52):
those letters to start, Becky wrote. My husband and mother
in law recently wrote in about Dill, and after hearing
you ask for Annam photos, I knew it was my
time to shine. I am Becky, wife of Andrew, daughter
in law Melissa, and eater of peanut butter and pickle
sandwiches and Dill Ranch oyster crackers. Dogs are a huge
(43:14):
part of our lives. We have three of our own
and have fostered ten, one of the many purse of
working from home the last couple of years. While we
haven't been overly created with costumes, one of our dogs, Luna,
is a literal angel, so we got her an angel
costume for Halloween this year. We're not picking favorites, but man,
is it nice to have one that listens to us.
(43:37):
Since she is so well behaved, she gets to go
with us most places. Attached to a picture of her
at an Easter egg hunt for dogs, at a beer event,
ailes for adoptable Tale, at one of our favorite local breweries,
the same one with the dill slash sea salt slash
sunflower seed beer that Andrew previously ruined in about one
in my hospital bed and when she got her Hogwarts
(43:59):
letter all. She is a pitbull Australian Shepherd chow Chow mix.
Our thirteen year old grumpy Jack Russell mix. Jace is
pictured in his Devils student. While he is not as
much of a devil as Luna is an angel, he
sure has his moments, including the time he jumped up
on the kitchen table and helped himself to a dish
(44:20):
of green beans, and the times he unwrapped gifts under
the tree so he could eat them. And yes, that
was meant to be plural, because I clearly did not
learn my lesson the first time did not think a
wrapped candle would trigger him. I have also included a
picture of him on the kitchen table, separate from the
green beans event, and one of him in his slitherin shirt.
(44:44):
Our most recent addition is Izzy. She is a foster
fail and is a lab Pointer mix. Attaches a picture
from March of where she is wearing her adorable St.
Patrick's Stay hat. A couple of pictures of her playing
with some of her favorite toys. Even though she is
almost two now, we still refer to her as our puppy.
She is one of the funniest and weirdest dogs I
(45:07):
have ever known. I could talk about these pups for hours,
but I won't subject you to that. You're lucky. I
only sent you thirteen photos because my phone has hundreds.
But thank you for being a shining light and this
sometimes dark world. I love listening to your podcast. And again, listeners,
I'm so sorry. The pictures are so cute. Yeah, they're
(45:28):
so cute. And Becky did give permission to post, so
we'll see. But that's that's adorable. Looks like you all
have so much fun. These are great stories. Yeah, and oh,
I'm so glad it's it's It is genuinely heartwarming to
hear about people fostering pups. That is that is always
(45:52):
always so good. So good it is it is, And
and once again, just hearing from multiple members of family
is delightful. Oh so wonderful. Um okay uh. Marnie wrote,
oh MG, I'm listening right now and had to send this.
My grandparents and dad grew up in Eastern Europe. What's
(46:14):
now Bosnia, However they're ectically German, living in that area
for hundreds of years. Any who, my grandmother always made
two hazelnut things. One was a cake with like seven layers.
It used hazelnuts instead of flower and had jam layers
and hazelnut butter cream to die for. Um. Then she
also made a cookie called um aldis brief German for
(46:36):
love letters. Um. They these have a flaky dough that's
rolled into this small circle and then inside is a
hazelnut meringue that you PLoP in the middle and then
folding the sides like an envelope. My sister followed my
grandmother around before she passed to measure behind her, and
now she makes these cookies as a gift her almost
eighty year old father. The memories I have now are
(46:59):
so shall so thank you, oh thank you, thank you,
and those Steve sound absolutely delicious, right, oh goodness. UM.
One of the one of the things that I make
that my dad made, not that I think it was
like a traditional family thing, but because he you know,
trained um in cooking and pastry was a lenser tort um,
(47:24):
which is an almond flower thing with with raspberry filling. UM.
That sounds like like categorically related and you rate to
the to that first one. Um oh, but that those
sound those both sound delicious. Yes, oh my gosh. Yes.
And so many of you have written in about hazelnuts,
(47:44):
so that's that's very exciting because we were like Della's
more about nut desert said, you all answered, So thank
you as always, and thanks to these two listeners for
writing into us. If you would like to write to
into us that you can our email as hello at
(48:04):
saber pod dot com, and we are also on social media.
You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at
saver pod, and we do hope to hear from you.
Saver is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
podcasts from my heart Radio, you can visit the iHeart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Thanks as always to our superproducers Dylan Fagan
and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we
(48:25):
hope that lots more good things are coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to Saber production of iHeart Radio. I'm
Any and I'm Lauren Vogelbam, and today we have an
episode for you about pop Tarts pop Tarts pop Yes, yeah,
not a sponsor, not a sponsor, no, no, any reason
this one was on your mind, Lauren, Oh it could
have been anything. Um yeah, yeah, I'm I love that
(00:32):
y'all are getting to experience, like my slow descent into
complete chaos. Um yeah, maybe maybe the last time that
I was searching for brands, um and I and and
and and we landed on pop Rocks. M hmm, there
(00:53):
there was Yeah. I was like, whoo, different quest, different day,
and now is the day. Now is the they And
this one, as with many of these brand episodes, is
super fun. It goes all over the place. Um, it's
just They're They're always such a delight to research are
(01:17):
And then I feel and then I feel weird about
about feeling so like like enthused about a commercial product.
I'm like, oh, man, capitalism so good is the season? Lauren? Heartwarming? Well,
(01:38):
it's just so interesting though, Like there's something that is
fascinating to me about someone, a company, an entity, or
just people who work for that company, who are so
into a product, who think so deeply about all of
the marketing and all the flavors, all of these different
(02:00):
ideas that they tried, which, by the way, we're going
to discuss they tried a lot of different things with
pop tarts. They just really fascinating to me. Yeah, that
like pop tarts of all things, like something that that
is to us um or I mean to me anyway,
so kind of like back of mind and and benign.
(02:23):
Like it's just not really like I'm never really thinking
about pop tarts. M Wow. We have a great Jerry
Seinfeld factor ended this one about that. But yeah, I don't.
I think I've talked about this before. I don't really
I don't dislike pop tarts, but they're definitely not my thing.
(02:45):
They've never been my thing except for a very very
brief period in middle school. I think, oh middle school. Wow.
I wasn't allowed to have them when I was growing up.
It was one of those like banned processed foods that
my dad was like, no, um, like jarred cheese, whiz yes,
pop tarts ridiculous, which meant that when I went to college,
(03:10):
I was like, Okay, I need to try all of
these um, and I did have like a like a
little bit like a couple of years in college where
I think the round sugar and cinnamon non frosted pop
tarts those were my thing. And I don't think I
ever heated them up. Just yeah, I didn't either, but
I wish I had. I think I would have liked
(03:32):
them more if I had. I there was a kind
of I I always found that that there was something
about that like sort of chemical flavor that you get
from them that sort of intensifies when they're warm, and
I didn't appreciate that. So Okay, Well it's interesting because
I when I went through my pop dart phase, strawberry
(03:53):
was definitely my favorite, UM, but I ate them cold.
I went through a much bigger toaster strudal thing, which
is hilarious because I read so many articles about like
why have no other products been able to compete with
pop tarts? And toast shrewdle was a big one where
the like, no, it didn't didn't. No. But when I
(04:14):
got to college, um, a lot of people I met
loved pop tarts and I loved hearing them rate the
flavors and do you heat it up or do you
not heat it up? How do you cut it? Do
you not cut it? Those preferences. I just very much
enjoyed hearing about, Oh my gosh, and people do love them,
(04:39):
oh my goodness, which I guess brings us to our
question pop tarts. What are they? Well? Uh, pop tarts
are a brand of sweet, prepackaged pastries um that are
(05:00):
hypothetically meant to be warmed in a pop up toaster
before eating as a breakfast food or a snack. They
come in a number of flavors and formats, but generally
what you're you're talking about when you're talking about pop
tart is a is a flat rectangle of um like firmed,
crumbly cookie type dough, like like like biscuit type dough,
(05:22):
maybe um, sort of small like like like three by
five inches that's a scant eight by thirteen centimeters um uh.
And there's like a thin layer of jam type filling
sandwiched in in the middle um, and maybe a layer
of stiff icing topping one side for extra sweetness in
or flavor and or visual interest. Uh. They come packaged too,
(05:44):
in a little foiled plastic envelope. They do not necessarily
taste like food um. But they're sweet and and filling
and delicious in a in a kind of sciency way. Um,
they're like a Okay, have have y'all seen those those
medieval illustrations of animals where it's clear that the illustrator
(06:10):
had never seen a lion or you know whatever it
is that it was in person, but you know someone
had given them the general concept and like they did
their best. M h yeah. Pop tarts are like that.
But with pastries. Um, they're almost entirely unlike handpies, but
(06:32):
the general concept is there and like blessom, they're enthusiastic. Yeah,
once again on point I agree. I think like I
can't wait until we get to some of the stuff
in the history section, but a lot of people who
love pop tarts. I love them almost because of this.
It's so like enthusiastic, bright and so different from the
(06:54):
rest of the breakfast landscape when they came out. Certainly
yeah uh yeah. The Kellogg Company manufacturers pop tarts. Um,
they have a dizzy ng array of flavors historically speaking. Um,
right now, the ones that are featured on the brand's website. Um, okay,
(07:16):
all right, first, I guess the crusts come in generally
to formats either like a plane uh, slightly salted pastry crust,
um like like sweet like like tiny bit of salt
in there um, or like a cocoa pastry crest. Yeah.
Fillings currently include the fruit related category um strawberry and blueberry,
(07:36):
which come either unfrosted or frosted then frosted, cherry frosted grape,
frosted raspberry, and frosted wild delicious wild berry. Yeah. Um,
I you know it's wild delicious. Uh. They're also um,
(07:58):
simply frosted harvest strawberry pop tarts, which are made without
artificial dyes, and they use regular corn syrup instead of
high fructose corn syrup. Yeah, so much more natural. Um,
and they are made with non GMO ingredients. Not there's
anything wrong with GMO as a category, but that's a
(08:21):
different episode. Yeah, okay, um. And then all right, so
those are the fruit related flavors. Then we've got like
the more straightforwardly dessert related flavors um, including the aforementioned
brown sugar and cinnamon, which also comes frosted or unfrosted
then uh frosted, chocolate chip, frosted, chocolate fudge, frosted confetti cupcake,
(08:43):
frosted Cookies and cream, frosted hot fudge, Sunday frosted s'mores, eggo,
frosted maple flavor yeah okay, um, and snickerdoodle which is
(09:04):
unfrosted but does have a sprinkle of cinnamon sugar on top. Wow. Yeah, okay, okay.
There are also some some like limited seasonal flavors. Right now,
frosted gingerbread is out, and I've also seen frosted sugar cookie.
And I am so confused about cookie flavored pastry, Like
(09:30):
what is that combination of words just doesn't mm hm,
because like I understand some mores filling, right, like there's
like marshmallow, there's like chocolate stuff like okay, like that's
like that's but but what is what is it filled
with listeners? I did read a couple of like tasting
(09:54):
notes that people would taste all of the current flavors
and it was fascinating. Um, some moores frequently came out
on top, So I don't know, yeah, listeners again, yeah,
uh yep, yep. They also The brand also makes pop
(10:15):
tarts bites, which are little bags of bite sized pastries
and they come in a few of the popular flavors,
plus also frosted strawberry banana. Yeah. They're also pop tarts crisps,
which are like like skinnier sticks. Um that I guess
are crisp crispier interesting, I don't know, um right in
(10:39):
uh yeah, and it various times, you know, they've done
tie ins with other brands, like, um, Disney, they did
a Disney Princess jewel berry uh huh um. They did
a tie in with the US Olympic team, um, which
was also a mixed berry flavor and it came in
gold colored foil packets. Um. And then Hello Kitty Mio berry.
(11:02):
Oh yeah, of course, yeah yeah, and they sometimes I
remember where they used to do those like fancy drawings
on them. Oh sure, yeah. I think maybe the gingerbread
ones have like a little like printed gingerbread man on them. Um.
And they also come with instructions for making a little
(11:23):
gingerbread pop tart house. Yeah okay, alright, sure. I mean
you can also make similarly shaped hand pies at home
if if you if that's the thing that you want
to do. Um. But if you sold them and called
them pop tarts, then Kellogg's would probably come after you. Yes,
(11:43):
and we wipe our hands of it. Yeah, we warned, Well,
what about the nutrition. Okay, a pop tart is a
calorically dense food. Um, a lot of show ger like,
like about half of your daily recommended intake of added sugars. Um.
(12:08):
Got got got some fats in there too, not much
in the way of protein. Has a few minerals that
they add in. That's nice, um, And definitely a treat
because of the sugar, and treats are nice. Treats are
nice if you like pop tarts, eat pop tarts man,
m m yeah. Um. I will say. Research into one
of the preservatives that's commonly used in processed foods, including
(12:31):
most pop tarts, UM called hurt beautile hydro quineome. I
didn't look that up. It's you can. You can also
call it tbh Q because that's a lot easier to
call something. Um. Yeah, but yeah, it might damp in
your immune system. Um. That's probably not great. Um. And
(12:54):
this is one of the many reasons that nutritionists will
generally recommend choosing ash are frozen products over shelf stable
processed products whenever you can. But you know, I I
doubt you need to worry about it too. Deeply unless
you are eating a number of pop tarts that is
(13:15):
worrisome on its own level. Indeed, indeed, will we do
have some numbers? Goodness, we do, and some of them
are quite astounding. Uh. Sales of pop tarts reached eight
hundred million dollars in twenty UM. According to some sources,
(13:37):
Kellogg's sells more than two billion billion pop tarts each year,
and this is pretty amazing since they're primarily distributed in
the US, like mostly the US, but they are also
in Canada, the UK, and Ireland and at one point Australia,
New Zealand, though I read that they were discontinued there
(13:59):
and then maybe we're like recontinued there again, listeners, Right
in two thousand five they stopped being available there, but wow, yeah,
and especially, oh my goodness, if they have other flavors
than the ones that I've just outlined, like like, oh,
let me know, is there is there a vegemite pop tart? Oh?
I can only hope there is a very popularly circulated number.
(14:25):
Um that as of sales of pop tarts had gone
up every thirty two years, which was like unheard, every
every year four thirty two years two years exactly yes,
which is it's very very impressive but surprising to me. Yeah,
(14:47):
um right right, because was was kind of after a
lot of sales of similar products had been kind of slagging,
um slagging, slacking going down. There you go, um, we're
record world record time. The record for the largest box
of pop tarts was set in spring of h Kellogg's
(15:10):
and seven eleven teamed up to create like a like
a large refrigerator sized box um and then filled it
with one thousand, three hundred and thirty one pounds of
pop tarts pounds. Yeah, yeah, okay yeah. The pop tarts
in question were then donated to the North Texas Food Bank. Okay,
(15:34):
there you go. Wow. Um. I found this interesting. This
wasn't a super scientific study our survey, but it found
that half of pop tart consumers don't toast them. Okay
yeah yeah. And according to Country Living, Walmart sees a
(15:55):
dramatic increase of the sale of strawberry pop tarts specifically
during hurricanes, um, like, alongside things like bread, water, and batteries.
Since these pop charts are pretty shell stable and don't
require heating. I just thought that was really interesting. Yeah
m hm, Well, the history is quite interesting too. It is,
(16:18):
it is, and we are going to get into that
as soon as we get back from a quick break
for a word from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank
you sponsored, Yes, thank you. So Yes, the tradition of
handheld pies is thousands of years old. Which, yes, you
(16:40):
can argue about pop charts and whether they qualified, but
I would say they are in that vain somewhat. Yeah. Yeah,
Like like I said, like like they're they're doing their best.
They're so enthusiastic, they are doing their best. And uh, honestly,
the or story is fascinating, it's really really interesting. Okay.
(17:03):
So post cereals invented what would go on to inspire
the pop tart in the nineteen sixties, but there were
several steps along the way. Um, and this was like
kind of key, I guess, you know. During the fifties
and sixties was when all those kind of sciency foods
are coming out, um, and pop charts was very much,
(17:26):
very much in that group that category. And yeah, speaking
of one of the biggest steps they had to figure
out to make pop tarts was how to keep the
fruit filling from spoiling. Mm hmmm. So the post research
and Development department figured out a way to adapt the
same technology they used in things like dog foods to
(17:48):
zog food baggaging I should say, um to inhibit bacteria
growth and prevent spoilage. So they would wrap the food
in the spoil and it would keep it very fresh. Um.
The wrapped pastries would be easily shipped and didn't need
to be refrigerated. Also very important during this time, um okay.
So Post announced their toaster prepared breakfast pastry in nineteen
(18:13):
sixty three or nineteen sixty four. They called them Country
squares okay um, and they were intended to be a
compliment to Cereal, which I find fascinating going back to
your point earlier, jeez. But they jumped the gun a
little bit because their product wasn't quite ready for launch
(18:33):
when they announced it. And their competitor, Kellogg's heard this
announcement and got to work creating their own version, right.
They created their own version within six months. Um. They
developed their own similar product and rushed to get it
out before Post got theirs out. At first, Kellogg's product
(18:56):
was called fruit scones, but they were soon renamed pop charts,
which was a reference to Andy Warhol's popular pop art
movement at the time. Yeah. Yeah, the the pop art
movement in which Warhol was a major player along with
other artists like like Roy Lichtenstein. Um moment, the Museum
(19:18):
of Modern Art had just held in like nineteen sixty
two a symposium on the genre. It was like a
really big cultural phenomenon at the time, and so so
the phrase pop art would have been really front of
mind for a lot of Americans right right in that moment.
And I cannot believe that I never had and put
that pun together. Me too, me too, It's so fun. Um. Also,
(19:45):
I believe that my previous note was was off. I
was about to say, camera, we're not on camera where
I mean, I guess we're talking to each other via camera.
But um, okay uh Annie's note about the cereal Um.
Before we were cording, I was talking about how it
always cracks me up watching commercials for products like pop Tarts,
(20:05):
because like it'll be a whole heck in full breakfast
with like a couple of pop Tarts smack in the
center of it, like like as though you were going
to eat like a bowl of cereal, a glass of milk,
a glass of orange juice and to pop tarts, and
that is going to be what you're up to. Yeah, daily,
that's what gets me. That's like a special breakfast maybe.
(20:27):
But the implication is there, like this, this is what
a balanced breakfast is. This is how pop tarts are
part of a balanced breakfast. So this is normal. And
I'm like, yes, okay, all right, so yeah, yeah, yeah,
we we often do this, Lauren. We always have these
conversations right before that we should really just include in
(20:48):
the podcast the nature of how we record it is
it is. But anyway, yes, uh So. The first flavors
of pop tarts were blueberry, strawberry, apple current, and brown
sugar cinnamon, and they were meant to be cut diagonally
along the dotted lines. Yeah, and they were pretty much
(21:11):
an immediate hit, to the point consumers wiped them out.
It was sold out within two weeks after its first shipment,
and they were first introduced in test markets in Ohio,
specifically Cleveland. But after this like great reception, they went
national in nineteen Um. I do love the pop Tart
(21:33):
official website. Uh is very snarky in a way that's fun.
Um And they make fun of apple currents as like,
no one knew what it was, so we changed the name.
It's just it's just a fun little company website. Uh.
And speaking of it's very very interesting to me that
(21:54):
this official website, Kellogg's Timeline of pop Tarts on it
claims that the companies chairman tasked some employees with creating
a breakfast pastry riff on jam and toast in nine three.
So that doesn't really it doesn't quite match up, is what. Yeah,
it sort of takes that like like mercenary pop tart
(22:15):
development versus post Um. Yes, which is another interesting thing.
You can read a lot of interviews with a man
named Bill Post, who is not related to the Post company.
Very confusing by the way, and he was at the
heart of coming up with the process of making these
(22:37):
pop charts these pastries. According to him, Kellogg contacted him
in nineteen s four, so again the dates are a
little messy, asking to see some of the equipment that
Post used as the plant manager at Keebler, like the
Keebler rills Um because they wanted to design a product
for the toaster but couldn't quite gure it out. So
(23:01):
so he gets this question from Kellogg and postmind his
mind starts worrying, like, oh, I gotta figure this out,
And basically he arrived at stacking two sheeters on top
of each other and a sheeters like this device, each
one weighing about sixty tons that you used to make
(23:23):
kind of like dough in a in a line. Um,
and it allowed for stacking them on top of each other,
allowed for two dough sheets to come out with filling
inserted in between them. Um. And yeah, as with many
of these stories that we tell about these products, he
allegedly tested pop tarts out on his kids. It's okay,
is this any good? You're a target audience, and like, yeah,
(23:45):
that's some frosting. Yeah, yeah, right, m m. He also said.
Post also said that the reason that there are two
pop tarts in a package is purely economic because if
you put two in a package, especially in the early
days when they weren't quite sure how long the shelf
life was going to be, Uh, it cut the cost
in half because of the cost of the foils. Oh sure,
(24:08):
okay uh. And also it's worth noting pop tarts really
revolutionized how people viewed toasters, which had previously been pretty
much a single use item for toasting bread. Um, that
was it. People were big fans of the idea that
breakfast could be ready in thirty seconds just by popping
(24:28):
these tarts in the toaster. I mean, pop Tarts works
on multiple levels. I don't know if they planned that,
but it's kind of brilliant. It really is, it really is.
But yeah, after that, other companies were like, what else
can we put in the toaster? Yeah? Um, Because Kellogg's
(24:50):
rushed pop Darts out, they were still refining the product
in the early days, they hadn't had time to test
if frosting could withstand the toaster, so that's why at
first they were unfrosted. However, uh, when testing proved that
frosting could stand up to toasters, which was something else
Post was integral in. He he seems like somebody who
(25:12):
was just never deterred by like that will never work.
He was like, watch me, watch me, and my kids
want frosting on their pop tarts. Uh. Frosted pop Tarts
debuted in nineteen sixty seven. Sprinkles were added into the
equation in ninety, and by nineteen seventy three the product
(25:34):
came in nineteen flavors. Nineteen flavors. That's a That's another
thing we were talking about before we started recording, Like,
like the pop Tart humans play fast and loose with
big flavors. They're they are not afraid of innovation. They
do go for it, yep, enthusiastic. It's very very interesting.
(25:58):
We're gonna talk about that more later, but it's interesting
to me that they will introduce a flavor or a
product idea and within months will be like, yeah, yeah,
did worked on and then there's a group of people
who love it and like campaign to get it back.
Oh my gosh, um okay. As more women entered the
(26:20):
U S workforce in the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties,
sales of pop tarts jumped. And this is really interesting
because we've talked about that time period before. It's an
interesting intersection of people were really wanting healthier items, but
also convenience was so important. Um and and pop Tarts
was able to ride this kind of healthy train for
(26:41):
a while, which is something else we're going to talk about.
Over the years, Yeah, pop Tarts have been the source
of several lawsuits, some of which you we're gonna briefly cover.
One of the first took place in nineteen two when
a man sued Kellogg's after a pop tart got stuck
in his toaster and call fire. Yes, the case caught
(27:06):
national attention when a humor columnist wrote about a pop
tart catching fire in his own toaster. This was such
a story at a time. Texas A and M University
professor Joseph Delgado did a somewhat playful experiment in found
that strawberry pop tarts could produce flames over a foot
(27:26):
high when left in the toaster too long. Um, you
can find the you can find the study. It's complete
with pictures. It's actually it is really fun. Um. It
wasn't so fun for Kelloggs, though, because in a wave
of lawsuits and prompted Kellogg's to add this warning to
the product due to possible risk of fire, never leave
(27:47):
your toasting appliance or microwave unattended. And this whole thing
was sort of mocked in comedian Brian Reagan's bit pop
tarts shouldn't have instructions where he just reads the instructions
of pop tarts to comedic effect. Oh um, okay, so yes,
(28:10):
Kellogg's has tried a lot when it comes to pop
tart flavors. And different iterations of their products. Many that
did end up discontinued. Limited flavor offerings got going in
the nineteen nineties. Pop Tart crunch cereal was introduced, in
which it looks like wheaties but pop tarts okay, alright, sure,
(28:33):
go tarts I remember. Go Tarts, which was a thicker,
narrower product were introduced into thousands six, but we're discontinued
in two thousand and eight. They've also tried all kinds
of things when it comes to advertising, including a pop
Tart pop up in Times Square. Yeah had pop Tart sushi,
(28:55):
Yeah yeah, um and and there I found a whole
essay about the history of their marketing and it was
really fascinating. So if that's something you're into, I recommend
looking it up because they got some interesting There was
a lawsuit around that as well. M mm hmmm. The
nineties is also when pop Tarts started to go international,
(29:16):
first in the UK, where they were fairly successful, but
nowhere near like the US market. Again, listeners, please write in.
The US military dropped two point four million pop tarts
over Afghanistan in two thousand and one. This was not
part of the weapons program. Um. This This was part
(29:37):
of a program to deliver rations amidst the supply chain
cut offs that the US had instigated as part of
its war effort. UM. So the rations did also include
things like rice and beans, peanut butter, and jelly, and
they termed the pop tarts and ice breaker. That's a
direct quote to introduce the Afghan people to American food.
(30:01):
And that is the most embarrassing sentence I think I've
ever said. Yeah, m hm, and we've said many embarrassing
basically all of them. Yeah, So that happened. That did happen. Uh,
and then more lawsuits. Beginning in the early two housings,
(30:25):
pop Tarts became the target of health groups, especially around
children's health, for what they claimed were misleading advertising around
nutrition and fruit content. The Children's Advertising Review Units or
c a r U of the Council of Better Business
Bureaus called for the removal of the phrase made with
real fruit from pop tart packaging and advertising. Kelloggs agreed
(30:49):
to do so and modified their ads and packaging UM,
but this is still ongoing. In Kellogg's faced a five
million dollar lawsuit about how they're pop tarts didn't contain
enough strawberries Um. There was a similar lawsuit that same
year about their fudge line of pop tarts basing it
(31:10):
wasn't fudge, don't use the name fudge. Yeah, which is
which is I'm positive, which is why the EGO co
branded pop tarts are called maple flavored not a yeah.
But right now, the the strawberry pop tarts, this, this
class action lawsuit claims um shouldn't be called are misrepresenting
(31:32):
the amount of strawberry involved in the pop tarts because
there's also a significant amount of dried apple and dried
pear in addition to the dried strawberry. So yeah, yeah, um,
so well, I guess we'll check in on that one day. Um.
In April, the original neon cat, which is you know
(31:55):
that cat with a pop tart for a body that
leaves a rainbow trail because it's out of floats through space,
was first introduced. I always think of Andrew. I don't know, uh,
And the video has over one hundred million views and
I couldn't find any information about this, but it is
(32:16):
one of the icons on Google docs when that happens.
But yeah, it is a thing that did happen. I
I am, I can't I can't argue with yon Cat.
I'm just like, yeah, that's delightful. Well, not so delightful.
This fact in the disgusting pop tart sandwich meme took off.
(32:43):
I've never heard of this, but you know, I said
it was delightful, but it actually was very funny. But
basically what happened was this college student in Iowa posted
a picture of a pop tart with a slice of
American cheese on it with a caption that read, you
ain't from Iowa if You've never had had one of these,
and he was widely mocked, including by the police IWA police,
(33:06):
and it started this meme of you ain't from x
if you never had one of these with pop tarts
and basically trying to make the grossest okay sure um,
and the official pop Tarts Twitter account got involved, tweeting
where is the respect these days? And they responded a
(33:27):
lot like you can read a whole threat about it.
It is quite funny. Honestly, that's great, that's great. I
you know, I was curious when you I didn't I
didn't look into this one myself, so I was curious
when you wrote the note. I was like police, the
band like did the band police gett I have a police? Okay,
they might have. People were into it, people had opinions, thoughts,
(33:51):
this is a whole thing somehow bypass me. But yeah, yeah,
me too, Uh, but yeah, I'm pop tarts are really
really iconic in American culture, and these are just a
few examples that I thought of. In the two thousand
three film Elf Buddy, the Elf uses pop tarts as
a topping for spaghetti. A song about how pop tarts
(34:14):
with butter on them, how how amazing that combination is
was in a episode of Family Guy that is also
in there frequently Asked Questions section of their website, not
the Family Guy referenced specifically, but they're like, can you
put butter on a pop tart? And they're like yes,
um yeah uh. Just just another example when when the
(34:38):
iPhone six line came out in someone put together like
a size chart of the of the most newly available
iPads and iPhones and it included in the lineup a
pop tart for visual reference, Like like, this is the
standard that everyone will understand, right, we all know the size,
(35:00):
we all know the size of a pop tart. So
here's a really good visual guide. Wow, yeah, alright, Well
this brings us to our Jerry Siebel fact that I
alluded to. Uh, he's a huge fan of pop tarts.
He has this whole joke about pop tarts. Um and
in fact, you can see a making of the joke
(35:22):
feature on New York Times New York Times YouTube about
it where he just talks about how he wrote this
joke and it's actually really interesting. Um. But I mean
the premises basically growing up in the sixties as a kid,
when the pop tart arrived on the scene, it was
like a new science thing had been invented. It was
the best thing ever stopped trying, scientists, you're done, um,
(35:47):
like like that, that's enough science. You can all go
home now, right exactly, this is the best thing you've
ever done. Stop it. In fact, one of the lines
in there is don't you see it's over? They can't
go stale because they were never fresh. It's very very silly.
(36:08):
It's very very silly. But in early Steinfeld announced he
was working on an entire movie about pop tarts, the
origin of pop tarts, called Unfrosted for Netflix, and it
has quite a budget. So that is fascinating. Okay, I'm
(36:29):
telling you when people love a product that that brand
loyalty yeah, oh my gosh. And final note related I
wasn't even going to mention this, but I could not
after I read more about it. Um. In May of two,
pop Tarts re released a fan favorite flavor from the
(36:53):
early two thousand's, Frosted Great Um, and all of the
marketing was why too hathy. The campaign was called why
Too Great and involved a sweepstakes to win a y
two K time capsule. Winners not only received a year's
(37:14):
supply a year's supply of frosted Grape pop Tarts, but
to quote, seventy five dollars Steve Madden gift card to
purchase the perfect purple jelly sandals, a purple y two
K purs, one ten dollar Manic Panic gift card, some
purple grape lip gloss, a pack of metallic gel roll pins,
(37:37):
one pack of y two K butterfly hair clips, and
a purple hat. Look too many memories were awakened by
that list that I had to include it. I don't
think I've ever felt as tired from reading a sentence.
(38:01):
I was like, oh, my arthritis. Heck, I still got
my shel pins in my butterfly clips. Oh my gosh.
I At the same time, I cannot deny that that
Y two K Lauren would have been psyched to to
win that prize package. So so good on them, Good
(38:25):
on them. It was well, you can tell somebody from
the era was on the board of deciding what should
be in this prize back it was it was strange
to feel so seen by what is just a the
company sweepstakes. Yeah, we'll wrestle with that later again, right,
(38:50):
Like it's so it's so weird. I'm like, yeah, no,
capitalism is really doing its job because I found I
found this heartwarming. Like I was like, oh, that's so sweet,
Like that's like they really really got their finger on
it there. I feel like the people who won, they
had to post their best, like grape looks. I mean,
(39:15):
that's what. There's a part of me that wants to
look more into that, and a part of me that
desperately doesn't. Anyway, there are so many of these kinds
of stories with this company, this brand that we could
have included and didn't, Like, they are filled throughout their
history with this kind of stuff that's brilliant. I mean,
(39:40):
I mean, there's there's there's a reason other than like
it's it's sweet. It's it's it's got sugar and fat,
and it's it's kind of crumbly crunchy and it's you know,
so it's tasty, like like humans enjoy eating that kind
of thing. But there are clearly reasons like that alone
does not make an eye conic brand, and so and
(40:02):
this one is so iconic and oh it's really fascinating
to me. I also, um, I kind of failed to
get together the science of how they make pop Tarts
so um shelf stable, but um and I kind of
like it's one of those things that sometimes you're like, oh,
there's really nothing out there? Is there really nothing out there?
Or am I using the wround keywords um to to
(40:24):
try to search And so, I mean, you know, I'm
not a professional food scientist. This is not stuff that
I just know off the top of my head. So like,
maybe if I can, if I can dig into the
patents and figure out which ones actually like are applicable
to the pop Tarts brand, then I'll update y'all. Yes please,
(40:47):
what a wacky job? Yeah yeah, because so so far
I've found a couple that I think are for the
pop Tarts brand um that involve low moisture coding to
keep to keep the moisture contained. And also there's a
lot of talk about slurries as it relates to the filling.
(41:11):
That's fascinating. I love a good love a good slurry,
love good slurry. Yes, And we have listeners who are
very science minded, have some experience training. So if you
if you have the secrets of the pop yeah, I mean,
don't don't like break an n D A on our
our behalf. But that's all right. But you can give
(41:38):
us like a wink wink cloak in this direction. Yeah,
that'd be cool. Yeah. Well, I think that's what we
have to say about pop arts for now. It is.
We do have some listener mail for you, though, and
we are going to get into that as soon as
we get back from one more quick break for a
word from our sponsors. And we're back, Thank you sponsor, Yes,
(42:07):
thank you, And we're back with like a toaster yeah okay, okay,
So this first listener mail I adore because we love
(42:29):
hearing from multiple people from a family or from a
friend group or whatever writing in about about the same
things or what have you. It's just such a delight
to hear like, oh yeah, my mom wrote in about this,
Let me clarify, let me out of this. It's wonderful,
genuinely is so good. Yes, so we have one of
(42:52):
those letters to start, Becky wrote. My husband and mother
in law recently wrote in about Dill, and after hearing
you ask for Annam photos, I knew it was my
time to shine. I am Becky, wife of Andrew, daughter
in law Melissa, and eater of peanut butter and pickle
sandwiches and Dill Ranch oyster crackers. Dogs are a huge
(43:14):
part of our lives. We have three of our own
and have fostered ten, one of the many purse of
working from home the last couple of years. While we
haven't been overly created with costumes, one of our dogs, Luna,
is a literal angel, so we got her an angel
costume for Halloween this year. We're not picking favorites, but man,
is it nice to have one that listens to us.
(43:37):
Since she is so well behaved, she gets to go
with us most places. Attached to a picture of her
at an Easter egg hunt for dogs, at a beer event,
ailes for adoptable Tale, at one of our favorite local breweries,
the same one with the dill slash sea salt slash
sunflower seed beer that Andrew previously ruined in about one
in my hospital bed and when she got her Hogwarts
(43:59):
letter all. She is a pitbull Australian Shepherd chow Chow mix.
Our thirteen year old grumpy Jack Russell mix. Jace is
pictured in his Devils student. While he is not as
much of a devil as Luna is an angel, he
sure has his moments, including the time he jumped up
on the kitchen table and helped himself to a dish
(44:20):
of green beans, and the times he unwrapped gifts under
the tree so he could eat them. And yes, that
was meant to be plural, because I clearly did not
learn my lesson the first time did not think a
wrapped candle would trigger him. I have also included a
picture of him on the kitchen table, separate from the
green beans event, and one of him in his slitherin shirt.
(44:44):
Our most recent addition is Izzy. She is a foster
fail and is a lab Pointer mix. Attaches a picture
from March of where she is wearing her adorable St.
Patrick's Stay hat. A couple of pictures of her playing
with some of her favorite toys. Even though she is
almost two now, we still refer to her as our puppy.
She is one of the funniest and weirdest dogs I
(45:07):
have ever known. I could talk about these pups for hours,
but I won't subject you to that. You're lucky. I
only sent you thirteen photos because my phone has hundreds.
But thank you for being a shining light and this
sometimes dark world. I love listening to your podcast. And again, listeners,
I'm so sorry. The pictures are so cute. Yeah, they're
(45:28):
so cute. And Becky did give permission to post, so
we'll see. But that's that's adorable. Looks like you all
have so much fun. These are great stories. Yeah, and oh,
I'm so glad it's it's It is genuinely heartwarming to
hear about people fostering pups. That is that is always
(45:52):
always so good. So good it is it is, And
and once again, just hearing from multiple members of family
is delightful. Oh so wonderful. Um okay uh. Marnie wrote,
oh MG, I'm listening right now and had to send this.
My grandparents and dad grew up in Eastern Europe. What's
(46:14):
now Bosnia, However they're ectically German, living in that area
for hundreds of years. Any who, my grandmother always made
two hazelnut things. One was a cake with like seven layers.
It used hazelnuts instead of flower and had jam layers
and hazelnut butter cream to die for. Um. Then she
also made a cookie called um aldis brief German for
(46:36):
love letters. Um. They these have a flaky dough that's
rolled into this small circle and then inside is a
hazelnut meringue that you PLoP in the middle and then
folding the sides like an envelope. My sister followed my
grandmother around before she passed to measure behind her, and
now she makes these cookies as a gift her almost
eighty year old father. The memories I have now are
(46:59):
so shall so thank you, oh thank you, thank you,
and those Steve sound absolutely delicious, right, oh goodness. UM.
One of the one of the things that I make
that my dad made, not that I think it was
like a traditional family thing, but because he you know,
trained um in cooking and pastry was a lenser tort um,
(47:24):
which is an almond flower thing with with raspberry filling. UM.
That sounds like like categorically related and you rate to
the to that first one. Um oh, but that those
sound those both sound delicious. Yes, oh my gosh. Yes.
And so many of you have written in about hazelnuts,
(47:44):
so that's that's very exciting because we were like Della's
more about nut desert said, you all answered, So thank
you as always, and thanks to these two listeners for
writing into us. If you would like to write to
into us that you can our email as hello at
(48:04):
saber pod dot com, and we are also on social media.
You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at
saver pod, and we do hope to hear from you.
Saver is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
podcasts from my heart Radio, you can visit the iHeart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Thanks as always to our superproducers Dylan Fagan
and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we
(48:25):
hope that lots more good things are coming your way.
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