Sour Patch Kids and Swedish Fish get a Glow Up

If you were to take a stroll down the seasonal aisle of Target around Halloween, you’d find a bags of candy advertising wrappers that glow in the dark. It’s spooky, right, to see a glow-in-dark skeleton on the wrapper of a Kit Kat bar.

But you know what you never see in the Halloween aisle? Candy that actually glows in the dark.

I guess there’s something unsafe about pumping a Reese’s cup full of whatever chemicals would cause it to glow in the dark. We still have some food safety rules in this country.

The makers of Sour Patch Kids and Swedish Fish want to change that — the glow-in-the-dark part, not the food safety rules part — with Sour Patch Kids Strawberry-Watermelon Glow Ups and Swedish Fish Mini Strawberry-Watermelon Glow Ups.

Is this bit of candy innovation a bright idea? Or should it have stayed in the dark?

Where I found it

I found both the Sour Patch Kids and Swedish Fish varieties on Target’s website.

What I paid

Sour Patch Glow Ups were $3.49 for a 6.7 oz. bag and Swedish Fish Glow Ups were $3.39 for a 6.7 oz. bag.

My thoughts

When it comes to gimmicks that I’ve covered for Snackology, glow-in-the-dark candy is probably one of the most gimmicky. (I did just cover Capri Sun pouches that glow in the dark, but you’re not supposed to eat the pouch itself.) What’s the trick here? How did they create Sour Patch Kids and Swedish Fish that glow in the dark?

Well, the secret is that they don’t actually glow in the dark. These new candies glow under a black light thanks to “special edible confetti that emits a fluorescent glow when under a blacklight due to the use of turmeric extract.” Mondelēz International, the makers of Sour Patch Kids and Swedish Fish, note that “the extract is completely flavorless.”

All of that means that I had to buy a black light for this edition of Snackology. I’m committed to this bit.

While a normal bag of Sour Patch Kids comes with five flavors (lime, lemon, orange, cherry and raspberry, according to my research), the Glow Ups version is 100 percent strawberry-watermelon. I’m sure this is to simplify the process of adding the turmeric extract, but what if strawberry-watermelon isn’t your thing?

Thankfully, strawberry-watermelon is absolutely a candy flavor that is my thing. I found myself repeatedly snacking on these Sour Patch Kids as I took photos of them. (No small task to eat candy while also holding a black light and your phone.) Like any classic Sour Patch Kids, the Glow Ups version is covered in that sugar combination that makes them increasingly sour the more you eat.

Sour Patch Kids aren’t my go-to candy, but I have been known to eat a box of them doing a movie.

The glow effect is pretty solid, with the edible confetti in each candy shining brightly under a black light.

I had to look up what flavor a normal Swedish Fish is after realizing I had never actually pinned that down. Was it cherry? I guess it’s lingonberry. Huh. You learn something new every day. For the Glow Ups version, though, Mondelēz stuck with the strawberry-watermelon flavor.

While I miss the classic Swedish Fish flavor, they’re pretty good in strawberry-watermelon. And something about the consistency or color of this candy makes them pop much more brightly under a black light when compared to the Sour Patch Kids version.

I mean, look at that glow. The Swedish Fish Glow Ups are an excuse to play with your food — or at least post pictures on social media of yourself with them

“We really try and focus to deliver on that cool factor for Gen Z and for the brand, that 18-to-22 year-old demo, as a key area for where we want our communication to first land,” a Sour Patch Kids brand manager told The Wall Street Journal. “That’s an area of culture where we see the trends being set, and we want to be a part of that.”

Final verdict: BUY

Will you have to invest in a black light to fully enjoy Sour Patch Kids Strawberry-Watermelon Glow Ups and Swedish Fish Mini Strawberry-Watermelon Glow Ups? Yes, you will. But it’s worth it. After years of making jokes about glow-in-the-dark candy, this is probably as close as we’re going to get.

I’m curious to see if the turmeric extract strategy of making glow-in-the-dark candy is applied to other products. Twizzlers, based on their consistency, feel like an obvious next step. Is there a way to add it to Hershey bars? Or the candy shell of an M&M?