Classic Strawberry Pop Tarts - key - © Kellogs

Pop Tart Turns 50 – Defies Healthy Eating Trend!

Who knew? If they hadn’t told us, we’d have assumed that the iconic mass-produced breakfast pastry, the Pop Tart, was fading into dietary obscurity with the much-hyped rise of the ‘Healthy Eating’ movement. But that’s not the case. In fact, it’s more popular than ever!

Classc Strawberry Pop Tarts - © KellogsGenerations of kids have grown up knowing and loving the iconic Pop Tart, originally a breakfast pastry but very soon becoming any anytime treat that even turned up in some school lunch bags on a fairly regular basis.

Post Cereals, which invented the breakfast pastry, only marketed the product for a year or so. Then Kellog’s took up the banner and brought out Pop Tarts, amid a barrage of advertising targeted mainly to kids and moms. And they have been stamping out Pop Tarts in a variety of filling flavours since 1964 (albeit with a couple of relatively brief interruptions).

The product got a huge boost from the feminist movement in the 70s, when hordes of moms decided to get out of the house and into the workforce, leaving less time to make home-baked treats. Not to mention that many young women in that day were just not interested in – some, in fact, idealistically opposed to – doing that sort of thing.

That’s right! It’s the 50th birthday of the Pop Tart!

And what may seem even more amazing: sales of Pop Tarts have increased, year over year, for the past 32 years straight!

That’s just one of the many curious Pop Tart facts in a recent story in the Wall Street Journal.

Did you know that:

  • Pop tarts are approximately 30 per cent sugar.
  • Pop Tart sales topped (US)$800 million last year (!).
  • Pop Tarts still cost only about (US)$2. for a box of 8.
  • Pop Tarts – which originally were advertised as ‘made with real fruit’ – are now hyped as ‘baked with real fruit’. Because they are, and have always been, only about 10 per cent real fruit…

Kellogg’s says teens are currently their biggest fans, followed closely by children. Coming in some ways back, but still a power on the Pop Tart consumer demographic picture, are adults who remember the sugary treat fondly from their own childhoods.

So, go ahead!

Scarfe a Pop Tart and relive the golden days of your innocent youth!

~ Maggie J.