Road Kill candy becomes roadkill

It’s not surprising that Kraft Foods has pulled its Trolli Road Kill Gummi Candy—shaped, as the name implies, like animals flattened by cars. What’s surprising is that it took this long for someone to notice and protest the product into oblivion; it’s been on the market since last summer. Described on this non-Kraft site as “an off beat [sic] twist on animal shapes,” it comes (or should we now say came?), in the shapes of squirrels, chickens and snakes, with an amusing—or maybe not, depending on your point of view—tire tread running down the back.

From a sheer marketing perspective, whether one thinks the candy concept is humorous or shows an appalling lack of sensitivity to animals isn’t the point. It’s that some organization out there would definitely think the latter and cause trouble for Kraft. In this instance, it was the New Jersey branch of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which found Kraft’s quick decision to pull the product, after its complaints, “refreshing” according to Stuart Rhodes, the Society’s president.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

March 1, 2005 | Permalink