Airheads – A Candy to Eat and Play With

Last Updated on April 14, 2022 by Jim Edwards

An Introduction to Airheads

Airheads are a delightfully creative and fun taffy candy available all over the United States of America and Canada. There are 16 different flavors of Airheads, however, this isn’t the exciting part. Airheads can be molded and flexed into various shapes and sizes, making it ideal for kids as well as adults to have fun with before gobbling them up. They are roughly 5” in length and 1” in width and that is why they are usually found in thin, long strips.

History of Airheads

The story of Airheads goes back to 1985, when the concept was first introduced. The company that designed it was named Van Melle Incorporated that also makes Mentos. It all started when Van Melle introduced a fruit chew toffee and approached Lipton Tea to know if there is any interest in it as a new product. Lipton Tea agreed to test it against their Fruit Wrinkles to see which one was more accepted by the public.

Van Melle produced a limited quantity of 10,000 fruit chew toffees however, the result was decidedly in favor of Lipton Tea’s own product. Van Melle had this production machine in the warehouse which now appeared useless. After a lot of brainstorming, the fruit center was suggested to be flattened out in a bar instead of a blog. The only issue was that it was very sticky for which they used a Mylar wrapper.

After a lot of hassle, the company finally managed to get the right flavor. As for the name, the inventor of Airheads asked his sons about silly names. They suggested a lot of different words but finally Airhead was decided.

Airheads was initially launched as one item in a 24-count box. The wrapping was done in a dark red color. The idea behind it was to test out the theory that children automatically go for red color whenever they see it. The popularity of Airheads spread like wildfire through word of mouth. In 2014, the Airheads factory in Kentucky was producing an astonishing 3,000 pounds of taffy and approximately 4 million Airheads bars every single day.

Flavors of Airheads

There are several different flavors of Airheads along with different variants.

• Original:For those who are fans of classics, there is nothing like the original Airheads. These come in a variety of flavors like Blue Raspberry, Watermelon, White Mystery, Grape, Orange, Strawberry and the delicious Green Apple.
• Bites: The Airheads Bites is an exciting new format filled with delicious bite-sized Airheads candies covered with a thin crunchy coating. The flavors are watermelon, blue raspberry, cherry, orange and lemon.
• Soft Filled Bites:The Airheads Soft Filled Bites was a bold initiative which became instantly popular. There are three layers of yumminess inside them, the tangy sugar coating, the sweet and soft outer layer and the flavorful fondant in the center.
• Gummies: AIrheads Gummies will surely bring out your inner creativity. With cute, little shapes like bow-ties, sunglasses and balloons and flavors of blue raspberry, cherry, watermelon, orange, green apple and strawberry, Airheads Gummies will delight your tastebuds
• Gums: For gum lovers, here is a treat for you. The Airheads Gums retain your favorite flavors; they are just now available in chewing gum. Blow your bubbles in watermelon, cherry and blue raspberry flavors.
• Xtremes: The Airheads Xtremes will have a battle of flavors in your mouth. These fruit rolls will taste from sweet to sour and fruit all together.
• Xtremes Bites: Compressing the juiciness of Xtremes into bite-sized miniature joys, you get Xtremes Bites. They have the same delightful combination of sweet, fruity and sour taste.
• Xtremes Sourfuls: If you aren’t a fan of sweet and sour taste, the Airheads Xtreme Sourfuls are going to convert you. These Rainbow Berry chewy candies have a perfect blend of sweet and sour taste.

Food Fun with Airheads

A most distinctive feature of Airheads is their ability to be stretched out and molded into different shapes. On the surface, it may seem like a playful aspect just for kids but there are various practical benefits of this feature.

Suppose you have just baked a cake but you don’t want to put in the usual decorations.  You can use Airheads and mold them into different shapes and textures. It will give a completely new look into the cake.

Another fun project that you can do is to have lots of colorful Airheads. Using your cookie cutter, you can make various shapes and create your own unique treat. This would be particularly useful on a rainy day when you are out of options to whip something up for children.

Airheads Nutritional Information

The following nutritional information is of one serving of Airheads. 

Calores	130
Total Fat	1.5g
Sodium	15mg
Total Carbohydrates	29g
Sugars	18g
Protein	0g

Airheads contain the following ingredients: Sugar, Corn Syrup, Maltodextrin, Dextrose, Modified Food Starch (Corn), Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, and Palm Oil.

Irish People Taste Test Airheads Candy

While Airheads is available in the US and Canada, here is a video of Irish people giving their reviews on Airheads.

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Image Credits – “Airheads” by Special is marked with CC BY-NC 2.0.

Image Credits – “Airhead” by Petri Damstén is marked with CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.