If you've ever fancied chewing on fruit snacks bearing the gruesome likeness of tire-flattened squirrels and snakes, you'd better hurry. Over the weekend, Kraft (NYSE:KFT) announced that it would be retiring its line of Road Kill gummy candies.
When Vermont Teddy Bear (NASDAQ:BEAR) pulled the plug on its controversial "Crazy for You" bear, the strait-jacketed plush toys sold on eBay for many times their retail price. And you can be sure that someone will do the same thing with the Trolli Road Kill snacks, loading up the grocery cart with boxes of them to auction off as a collectible.
The suddenly endangered snacks had been selling briskly since they were introduced this past summer. Pretty insane, isn't it? You can almost hear the editors of Business 2.0 cracking their knuckles in anticipation of its next annual installment of 101 Dumbest Moments in Business. The only surprise here may be that animal activists and other offended groups took this long to draw enough media attention to force Kraft into making a public decision.
I'm not easily offended -- I applaud creativity -- yet even though I don't have a problem with the Road Kill idea, I can see how it would be offensive to others. No company, certainly not a juggernaut like Kraft, should ever test the gray areas of bad taste for the sake of edgy product differentiation. What's next? Will the company be packaging plastic knives with their cheese blocks in a "cut the cheese" promotion? Will Jell-o be renamed Hell-o and marketed as the official gelatinous treat of eternal damnation?
Kraft is smarter than that. In fact, this almost wasn't an issue for the company -- it was already looking for a buyer for its confectionery lines. This may prove to be a case of bad timing for Kraft if a Hershey (NYSE:HSY), Tootsie Roll (NYSE:TR), or Wrigley (NYSE:WWY) can take advantage of the situation to drive a hard bargain with Kraft for Trolli.
At that point, Kraft would have to take a closer look at itself, only to be ironically surprised to find the tire treads running across its own middle.
For more related stories, chew on these:
- Sara Lee (NYSE:SLE) is also looking to slim down.
- Kraft is backing away from advertising to kids.
- Vermont Teddy Bear knows a thing or two about controversial products.
Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz thinks a "cut the cheese" promotion might be kind of funny. He does not own shares in any company mentioned in this story. The Fool has a disclosure policy. He is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early.
