dime.oftheweek

postponed until I can find some (local 7/11s are failing me)…

Round Up: A quick side note, the demise of dime.oftheweek has been greatly exaggerated.  Today, I will tackle the Airhead, a cheap, individually wrapped strip of taffy that should remind many of you of middle school (I used to love to pack my Airheads into a little ball by holding tight to one end of the wrapper and banging it back and forth to make a nice ball of sugar!).  I was able to find Airheads for as little as $.19 on my recent trip through the heartland (NC, SC, GA, AL, MS, LA and TX).

The original Airheads logo

History: Airheads were created in 1986 by Van Melle Inc, a Dutch candy company that produces other luminaries like Mentos and Fruitella.  After a merger in 2001, Van Melle became Perfitti Van Melle, the sixth largest candy manufacturer in the world.  Airheads and their accompanying product lines are produced in Erlanger, Kentucky.

Facts:

• Nearly 14 billion Airheads have been sold since 1986.
• There are six flavors of Airheads: Green Apple, Strawberry, Cherry, Watermelon, Blue Raspberry and White Mystery.
• Perfitti Van Melle refuses to identify White Mystery, but I contend it is its own flavor all by itself.  Other theories of mine are that they simply leave out the dye from the other flavors, making it a veritable candy Russian Roulette while still others think it is a blend of all the flavors.
• Airheads is the official ‘non-chocolate candy’ of US Youth Soccer.

Competition: As a taffy-like substance, Airheads comeptition naturally other taffies.  An obvious contender would be Laffy Taffy, another individually packaged, cheaply priced taffy.  Perhaps a less obvious competitor is Now and Later, a candy sold in chews (like Starburts) but with a very similar intense flavor to AIrheads.

Nutritional Information

• Net Weight: .55 oz
• Calories: 60
• Total Fat: 1g
• Sugar: 9g

Sources:

• Airheads official website
• Airheads wikipedia page
• Perfitti Van Melle history

When I was younger, Saturday was a good day.  Twice a month, my dad would take me and my siblings, with our allowance clutched in our dirty little fists, to the convenient store to spend our money on as much candy as we could get for a dollar (or two, if we had been saving properly).

In that vein, this weekly Saturday post is going to focus on a type of delicious candy that is available for less than a dollar.  Candy is unique, because it is still relatively cheap (perhaps it has even lost value from the ‘dime-store’ era: according to my trusty inflation calcuator, $.10 in 1930 is $1.23 today).  We can only hope that it will remain cheap forever.

Look for tasty treats like Skor bars or Cowtails or Now-and-Laters in the coming weeks.  Suggestions are always welcome in the comments, just limit them to items that are available for less than $1 at most convenient stores.