Snacking Through The Decades: 1950s & ’60s

Today we’re travelling back to the middle of the Twentieth Century to check out the most popular snacks of the time period and see which of today’s favorite snacks emerged during the 1950s and 1960s.

1950s

With the recovery of the American economy came the emergence of fast food, a cultural shift that greatly affected American snacking. However, packaged snacks were not about to concede to the fast food trend. Peanut M&Ms, Atomic Fireballs, Certs Mints, Hot Tamales, PEZ candy, Pixy Stix, Smarties Candy Necklaces and Marshmallow Peeps were all candies developed during this decade. Popular packaged foods included Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes and Special K cereals, General Mills’ Trix and Cocoa Puffs cereals, Star-Kist Tuna, Minute Rice, Eggo Waffles, Pepperidge Farm Cookies, Ruffles potato chips, Rice-A-Roni, Ramen Noodles, and Haagen-Dazs Ice Cream. Tang was an extremely popular drink during this decade, and Ocean Spray beverages also emerged in this decade.

1960s

The decade of space exploration was also full of experimentation with new flavors, textures, and packaging for snacks and meals, including the first use of aluminum cans for food and beverage packaging. These developments led to products like Sprite, Coffee-Mate, Pop-Tarts, Carnation Instant Breakfast, Bugles, Yoplait Yogurt, Shake ‘n Bake, Cool Whip, Spaghetti-Os, Gatorade, Diet Pepsi, Doritos, Taster’s Choice, Quaker Instant Oatmeal, Campbell’s Chunky Soups and Pringles. Candy also made a resurgence with 100 Grand, Swedish Fish, Fruit Strip Bubble Gum, Lemonheads, Now and Laters, Starburst, SweeTarts, Tic Tac Mints, Trident Gum, Twizzlers and Swizzle Sticks.

These two decades were full of innovative developments, many of which have survived a half-century of additional product developments to still be found today in Canteen vending machines and Avenue Cs.