Discontinued Skittles Flavors We'll Probably Never Get To Eat Again

In the world of candy bars, or portioned and bagged bite-sized candy, loyalties and favorites are established when customers are young and remain in place for decades. Skittles are a relatively new brand, hitting store shelves in the United States in 1979 and quickly becoming one of the bestselling and most popular candies around. Imploring customers to "taste the rainbow," Skittles initially were presented in a red package of mixed flavors, such as grape, lime, strawberry, lemon, and orange. 

The candies' unique makeup — thick, extremely chewy, juice-releasing, little round nuggets bursting with a powerfully sweet fruit flavor — proved undeniable. Candy companies think they know what we want to eat, and so Skittles producer Wrigley rolled out Skittles in various other permutations. Some ideas, like Sour Skittles and Tropical Skittles, stuck around and joined its candy predecessor on thousands of candy racks across the land. Other Skittles concepts just couldn't capture the hearts, minds, and tastes of the populace, and they faded away almost as fast as an actual rainbow. Here are all the Skittles offshoots, spin-offs, and versions rolled out over the decades that flopped, disappeared, and aren't likely to ever return.

Months before they were even available for purchase, candymaker Wrigley launched the marketing hype for what it called in some Facebook and other social media posts, "our fanciest Skittles yet." What made Skittles Dips such a purportedly high-end, next-level product? Yogurt. Skittles Dips, which arrived as promised in 2020, consisted of the flavor collection from the then-current lineup of Original Skittles (strawberry, apple, lemon, grape, and orange), which had been plunged into and coated with a thin layer of sweet, milky white stuff claiming to be "Creamy Yogurt," not unlike that used to enrobe raisins and other candied fruit.

Boasting a mix of textures and familiar flavors bound together, the creamy and soft yogurt mixed well with the ultra-chewy and fruity skittles, making for a candy version of fruit, sugar, and cream. Some fans liked to chill Skittles Dips to more fully chase that sensibility. A unique product and one of the most progressive Skittles ideas ever attempted, Skittles Dips lasted for about three years before discontinuation.

In 2008, premium jelly bean brand Jelly Belly injected the principles of games of chance — and some absolutely disgusting flavors — into candy, via its Beanboozled products. Packs contained wildly and creatively gross flavors disguised as ordinary, palatable jelly beans, and consumers had fun avoiding or consuming revolting ones. A great game night snack, Beanboozled became such a massive food fad that other candy companies decided to give the underlying concept a try. In the months prior to Halloween in 2019, foolhardy Skittles fans could attempt the challenge presented by Zombie Skittles. 

Bags featured several brand new and spookily named flavors, such as Boogeyman Blackberry, Chilling Black Cherry, Blood Red Berry, Mummified Melon, and Petrifying Citrus Punch. In addition, each package of Zombie Skittles included a few pieces meant to taste like that of putrid flesh, or "rotten zombie," not discernible to the naked eye because they were made up to look like any of the other flavored Skittles bits. Zombie Skittles caused such a sensation that they once again hit stores for the Halloween season in the fall of 2020. But that's the last time these undead-flavored Skittles roamed the Earth before Skittles killed them off, likely for good.

Dollar General landed the exclusive rights in 2019 to sell a brand new collection of primarily previously available Skittles flavors put together for the first time that blurred the line between candy and nostalgic ice pop. Clearly meant to bring the taste and sensibility of Fla-Vor-Ice or Otter Pops to the realm of shelf-stable, unrefrigerated candy, Freeze Pop Skittles candies were made in strawberry, orange, grape, lemon, and raspberry flavors.

Consumers were likely confused over what Freeze Pop Skittles were, exactly, since they weren't a frozen, ice cream-adjacent novelty meant to taste like Skittles flavors. Those exist, and they carry a near identical name: Skittles Freezer Pops. Instead, these were more like a standard type of Skittles candy, but meant to remind consumers of classic, popsicle-type treats. Freeze Pop Skittles were also never intended to be a forever-available candy. Launched as a limited edition product, the life of Freeze Pop Skittles wasn't extended past its initial availability period of the summer of 2019.

Candy is almost always sweet, particularly the fruity candies made by major manufacturers that can be found most anywhere. To differentiate themselves among the many other candy options, brands may launch a version of their flagship product that makes a big impression on the taste buds. Sour Skittles, for example, present the five flavors of the original Skittles with a dusting of mouth-puckering sour sugar. That must have done well enough in sales over the years that Skittles took another swipe at pleasantly unpleasant candy with Skittles Sweet Heat.

Sold in an imposing and enticing black package adorned with illustrated flames, Sweet Heat Skittles paired the very sugary candy with a potent kick of spice that inflamed the mouth just a little bit and for just a little while. Sweet Heat Skittles were all the more appealing because of the flavors used, based on fruits that match well with spice. One bag contained a few samples each of Blazin' Mango, Flamin' Orange, Sizzlin' Strawberry, Lemon Spark, and Fiery Watermelon Skittles. 

Despite the emergent and growing popularity of challenging, super-hot foods, Sweet Heat Skittles didn't take off. Instead, they were pulled from shelves not long after they were put there in the first place in 2017.

First flown in 1978, the Pride Rainbow flag represents several and often interconnected LGBTIQ-identifying communities. In depicting diversity, the flag consists of stripes of the major colors of the rainbow. Skittles has also long used rainbow nomenclature and imagery in its marketing materials and product presentations, such as the advertising motto "Taste the Rainbow" and how all of its varieties feature an array of colors. While other products and companies adopt rainbows or Pride flags during Pride Month cultural celebrations each June, Skittles had to go another direction to show its support of the LGBTIQ populace, and in 2016, it eliminated all color from its packaging and the candies inside. 

For around June that year, Skittles were sold in wrappers of all white with black lettering, and the Skittles morsels were white with a black "S" etched in. "Only #OneRainbow matters" during Pride Month, the company said (according to CNN). Skittles rolled out the eye-catching, all-white product for subsequent Pride Months, enduring opposition and boycott threats from social and cultural critics. The special Skittles appeared every year from 2016 to 2020, but haven't been presented in that exact way since.

The flavor combination that informs a bag of original Skittles as of this publication and historically is: lemon, lime, grape, orange, and strawberry. In 2015, Skittles went all in on apples. Around that time, producers had switched out the green, lime-flavored Skittles for green apple-flavored ones, and then brought in a slightly altered formulation for a red apple candy, one of the highlighted flavors in a new candy called Skittles Orchards. Sold in a dark green package reminiscent of tree foliage, Skittles Orchards consisted of candies that tasted like fruits grown commercially on trees and in orchards, and featured a pit or a core, such as red apple, peach, and cherry. Skittles Orchards also included lime (making those deleted candies available somewhere, at least) and orange candies, straight from the regular Skittles production line and based on fruits of the citrus variety that grow in groves, not orchards.

Critics were so-so about Skittles Orchards, noting that the peach candies didn't taste much like real peaches, but that the cherry and red apple were more than able to replicate their inspiration. Reportedly, about two years after their introduction, Skittles Orchards were retired from the marketplace. In 2021, lime Skittles made their way back to the Original flavor bags, replacing green apple.

Skittles aren't all that complicated of a candy. One piece consists entirely of a fruit-flavored, chewy midsection encased in a thin, flavorless, and vibrantly colored candy shell. When the makers of Skittles want to mix things up and come up with a new option, they don't have many options besides changing the flavor — or as was attempted in early 2012, messing with the outer coating to make for a fun, low-key guessing game. Skittles Riddles were edible little puzzles because the color on the outside didn't match the flavor inside.

Consumers would open a bag of Skittles Riddles and inside find candy circles of red, pink, blue, light green, and aquamarine. The actual flavors used were raspberry, watermelon, punch, strawberry, and apple. And then the true fun began — one might pop a blue Skittle into their mouth, and not taste whatever flavor they might have been expecting. Skittles Riddles represented a new sensory disconnect in candy.

The U.S.-released Skittles Riddles were a revamp of a U.K.-only item with the more leading name of Skittles Confused. After Skittles Riddles performed modestly in 2012, the candy hit the U.K. once more. Whatever their name, Skittles with outsides that don't align with their inner workings didn't make for a casual candy-consuming experience. They didn't sell very well, were reportedly discontinued in 2014, and a low-key petition drive didn't change Wrigley executives minds about calling off the joke of Skittles Riddles.

Arriving in stores in 2010, Skittles Fizzl'd Fruits presented a common, almost mundane candy but with a whole new dimension. These were Skittles that didn't just taste nice, like fruits and corn syrup: These Skittles reacted, exploded, and bubbled over like a school science experiment. These candies resembled Sour Skittles, as they were covered in a sandy white dust. That dust ensured the proper reaction: when Fizzl'd Fruits made contact with moisture — such as the saliva found in the human mouth — they'd start to gently fizz, and then that fizz would rapidly turn into bubbles, and the bubbles turned to foam. It's as if these Skittles were embedded or covered with a hint of an Alka-Seltzer tablet; indeed, the candy contained a similar active ingredient to that over-the-counter digestive medicine.

The bags promised "fizzling fun for your mouth," and the candy certainly delivered. Plus, the selected flavors of wild cherry, strawberry, raspberry, berry punch, and melon berry were easy to like. Unfortunately for lovers of Skittles Fizzl'd Fruits, the novelty of bubbling candy couldn't sustain a lengthy shelf life for this inventive take on Skittles.

Both the most enduring and least successful Skittles flavors are fruit-oriented. It seems like the makers of the rainbow-colored and multi-flavored candy nuggets have taken inspiration from most every commonly-known, naturally-occurring sweet there is, which made the 2007 launch of Skittles Carnival Skittles that much more exciting. Here was the rare Skittles line extension that packed the taste and experience of other sugary treats into those tiny circular shapes. Skittles almost always come in bags of five flavors, and Carnival Skittles re-created the tastes of things one might find at a concession stand at a carnival, fair, circus, or celebration, particularly cotton candy, candy apples, red rope licorice, green slushy, and bubble gum. 

Homemade carnival food doesn't always stand up to its midway brethren, but those who sampled Carnival Skittles were pleased with how accurately the food scientists nailed those very specific and celebrated flavors. The blue-colored cotton candy and pink bubble gum Skittles especially earned high praise. The green slushy candy reportedly tasted like a slightly bitter, lime-infused Mountain Dew.

Even though Carnival Skittles performed the task of impersonating snack bar offerings well, the candy was only supposed to be around as a special, limited edition option for the summer of 2007. When the real carnival and fair season calmed down in the fall, Carnival Skittles went away, too, but they didn't come back the next summer, nor any subsequent one.

Of all the many vividly flavored bite-size fruit candies available, none take the form of plump little discs like Skittles. The most prominent physical doppelganger of Skittles: original recipe M&Ms, the chocolate counterpart of its fruit-flavored candy competitor. But then in 2007, Skittles tried to home in on M&Ms' territory with Skittles Chocolate Mix. While M&Ms are made from a recipe that uses actual chocolate, the various flavors of chocolate Skittles were more of the chocolate-flavored ilk — they offered the same consistency and chewiness of the parent candy, but with wholly artificial chocolate tastes. And yet not even all the flavors were chocolate-based; Skittles Chocolate Mix included S'mores, chocolate caramel, chocolate pudding, brownie batter, and vanilla-based pieces.

Reviewers weren't impressed with Skittles Chocolate Mix, finding them lackluster because the absence of fat in the candies meant they couldn't deliver a realistic or distinctive chocolate experience. Imagine M&Ms, but chewy and only vaguely suggestive of actual chocolate. Skittles Chocolate Mix came and went quickly without much distinction. Ignored by the candy-buying public, they're not fondly remembered and not likely to wage a comeback in their original, disappointing format. It's a discontinued chocolate candy we'll probably eat never again.

There are many wonderful things about ice cream, but one quality it lacks, and will never possess, is portability. Something almost magical happens when all the basic ingredients required to make ice cream — cream, sugar, and a flavoring agent — mix up together and undergo the transformative freezing process, resulting in a new set of flavors. Skittles tried to capture that sensation in 2006 with its non-melting, candied frozen dessert flavor pack called Skittles Ice Cream. Not to be mistaken for ice cream studded with or covered in Skittles, or Skittles-branded ice cream bars, this was a bag of the well-known candy with five flavors that admirably approximated the taste of well-liked ice creams. Among the Skittles Ice Cream components: chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, orange-vanilla swirl, and caramel ripple.

Among the sweetest and least tart Skittles styles ever sold, Skittles Ice Cream were never intended to last for long. Real ice cream lives a fleeting existence, and so too did Skittles Ice Cream, melting away after its limited run in the spring of 2006.

Probably the only candy-type confection that can really be compared to Skittles, in terms of texture and mouthfeel, is gum. Both the brightly-colored, fruit-flavored candy morsels and many gums are exceedingly chewy and take some effort to consume, so it was a logical brand extension back in 2004 with the introduction of Skittles Bubble Gum. Skittles had entrenched itself into the collective consciousness for far too long as a candy one eats and swallows, as opposed to Skittles gum, which tasted and looked almost exactly like Original Skittles. Skittles are arguably fit for human consumption, while gum definitely isn't, and  consumers were supposed to spit out Skittles gum when the flavor ran out, or they got bored with it. 

With a twist on the "Taste the Rainbow" slogan of "Inflate the Rainbow," Skittles Bubble Gum could even be blown up the way other bubblegums can. But it didn't leave enough of an impression in the market to avoid getting cut, as production on the item ended in 2010. This was despite the candy's producer, Wrigley, being known primarily as a significant gum company.

But while Skittles Bubble Gum was still on the market, another chew-don't-eat variation on the popular candy hit stores. Xtreme Fruit Skittles Gum came onto the scene in 2006, offering more chewing satisfaction and in slightly more intense and creative flavors such as blue raspberry, wild cherry, watermelon, green apple, and tangerine. Despite online petitions seeking a reintroduction, Xtreme Fruit Skittles never popped back up.