UPDATE, 8/10/10: For brand-new video of the just-opened Pop-Tarts World in Times Square, check out this report from the AP:
Lastly, Gawker.TV has a video of Fox News' Shepard Smith scoffing at some the Pop-Tarts creations on the air yesterday.
Original post below:
Apparently, $481 million of Pop-Tarts sales in the last year (excluding Wal-Mart!) is small enough to strike fear into the hearts of Kellogg's executives. Enter, "Pop-Tarts World," an upcoming Times Square theme store in the vein of rival of the similarly located candy-centered funhouses of Hershey's and M&M's.
A Times Square storefront, with requisite flashy signage and gimmicks inside, is "a way to project an image of growth and maturity," the New York Times quotes a marketing expert as saying in their report on Pop-Tarts World. "The foot traffic is staggering," says real estate expert Laura Pomerantz.
The focus of Pop-Tarts World's Times Square campaign will be a frightening array of roughly 30 snacks and desserts concocted by their "chef," either to demonstrate the exponential culinary possibilities the Pop-Tart presents to its unsuspecting consumers, or to show how zany and hip the partially pop-art-inspired brand is, or some mysterious combination of both.
The horrifying Pop-Tarts creations include, but will not be limited to:
- Pop-Tarts "Fluffer Butter": marshmallow spread between two Pop-Tarts frosted fudge pastries
- "Sticky Cinna Munchies": cinnamon rolls topped with cream-cheese icing and chunks of Cinnamon Roll pop-tarts
- Ants on a Log (Pop-Tarts-edition): celery, peanut butter and chunks of Wild Grape-flavored Pop Tarts
- Build-your-own Pop-Tarts: sort of a sundae -- start with a basic pastry and servers add frosting, ice-cream-style toppings, and caramel or raspberry, etc. "drizzle." Then take these home as-is, frozen, toasted, microwaved or uncooked. We don't get it either.
The most horrifying of them all? Pop-Tarts "sushi." From the Times:
And then there's the Pop-Tarts Sushi, three kinds of Pop-Tarts minced and then wrapped in a fruit roll-up. "We did an internal tasting here at the building, and it was the winner," said Etienne Patout, senior director at the Pop-Tarts brand, part of the Kellogg Company.
At about 20 grams of sugar in a single 54-gram serving, Pop-Tarts' decline seems like a positive development in our national food consumption, and a store devoted to showcasing the ways to make the supposed breakfast item even more astonishingly unhealthy could be a massive blunder. Or, it could be brilliant.