Fruit Roll-Ups is a brand of

snack A snack is a small portion of Human food, food generally Eating, eaten between meals. Snacks come in a variety of forms including Food packaging, packaged snack foods and other processed foods, as well as items made from fresh ingredients at ho ...

that debuted in grocery stores across America in 1983. It is a flat,

corn syrup Corn syrup is a food syrup that is made from the starch of corn/maize and contains varying amounts of sugars: glucose, maltose and higher oligosaccharides, depending on the grade. Corn syrup is used in foods to soften Mouthfeel, texture, add vol ...

-based, fruit-flavored snack rolled into a tube, spread on a backing sheet of

cellophane Cellophane is a thin, transparent sheet made of regenerated cellulose. Its low permeability to air, oils, greases, bacteria, and liquid water makes it useful for food packaging. Cellophane is highly permeable to water vapour, but may be coate ...

to prevent the product from sticking to itself. Fruit Roll-Ups are manufactured by

General Mills General Mills, Inc. is an American multinational corporation, multinational manufacturer and marketer of branded ultra-processed consumer foods sold through retail stores. Founded on the banks of the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in ...

and distributed under the

Betty Crocker Betty Crocker is a brand and fictional character used in advertising campaigns for food and recipes. The character was created by the Washburn-Crosby Company in 1921 to give a personalized response to consumer product questions. In 1954, Gener ...

brand in the American market and under the Uncle Tobys brand in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. Several similar products have been marketed by General Mills and by other companies.

Advertising

Fruit Corners Fruit Roll-Ups were heavily marketed on television in America throughout the early 1980s. Most spots featured the tag line "Fruit Corners Fruit Roll-Ups: Real fruit and fun, rolled up in one." Later spots featured children innovating in the "Fruit Roll-Up Fun Factory". The overall marketing theme is that parents can feed their children "fun" processed foods that are based on real

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants (angiosperms) that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which angiosperms disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particular have long propaga ...

. Studies of American mothers have shown that the mothers are surprised at how sweet Fruit Roll-Ups are and how little fruit is present in them. For example, the strawberry flavor contains no strawberries, and the only ingredient derived from fruit is concentrated pear juice.

History

General Mills' research for the product began in 1975. Joray Fruit Rolls are a round,

fruit leather Dried fruit is fruit from which the majority of the original water content has been removed prior to cooking or being eaten on its own. Food drying, Drying may occur either naturally, by sun, through the use of industrial food dehydrator, dehydra ...

product from New York that predates Fruit Roll-Ups. Fruit Roll-Ups have a more rubbery texture than the natural rolls and though were originally round in shape, they are now shaped like a

parallelogram In Euclidean geometry, a parallelogram is a simple polygon, simple (non-list of self-intersecting polygons, self-intersecting) quadrilateral with two pairs of Parallel (geometry), parallel sides. The opposite or facing sides of a parallelogram a ...

. Fruit Roll-Ups have featured variants on the original plain sheets such as punch out

shape A shape is a graphics, graphical representation of an object's form or its external boundary, outline, or external Surface (mathematics), surface. It is distinct from other object properties, such as color, Surface texture, texture, or material ...

s on the rolls and temporary tattoos for

tongue The tongue is a Muscle, muscular organ (anatomy), organ in the mouth of a typical tetrapod. It manipulates food for chewing and swallowing as part of the digestive system, digestive process, and is the primary organ of taste. The tongue's upper s ...

s and formerly on skin. * Berry Lemonade/Cherry Slushie *Crazy Pix Cool Chix Berry Wave *Crazy Pix Wild Ones Blastin' Berry *Electric Blue Raspberry *Flavor Wave Betty Crocker sells Fruit Roll-Ups in single-flavor boxes and flavor variety packs.

Ingredients

The main ingredient is sugar, and Fruit Roll-Ups contain five different types of sugar: sugar from pear juice concentrate,

, dried corn syrup,

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecul ...

, and a small amount of

dextrose Glucose is a sugar with the molecular formula , which is often abbreviated as Glc. It is overall the most abundant monosaccharide, a subcategory of carbohydrates. It is mainly made by plants and most algae during photosynthesis from water an ...

. They also contain small amounts of partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil, citric acid, sodium citrate, acetylated monoglycerides, fruit pectin, malic acid, ascorbic acid, natural flavors, and artificial colors.

Lawsuit over health claims

In 2011, the

Center for Science in the Public Interest The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is a Washington, D.C.–based non-profit watchdog and consumer advocacy group. History and funding CSPI is a consumer advocacy organization. Its focus is nutrition and health, food safety ...

sued General Mills over Fruit Roll-Ups, saying that their packaging and marketing was misleading because it presented the product as a nutritious, healthful, fruit-filled snack, despite having approximately the same nutritional profile as gummy bear candies. The lawsuit was settled out of court with General Mills agreeing not to put pictures of fruits on the labels, unless that fruit was actually present in that flavor of the Fruit Roll-Up, and to either stop claiming that the product is "made with real fruit", or to include in that potentially misleading statement the percentage of the Fruit Roll-Up that is made from real fruit. These changes took place in 2014.

References

External links