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Kraft
Discontinued: Early 1980s
Kraft released these processed cheese logs in 1951. Home hosts could set them out at parties without any prep work. The logs came ready to serve, cutting kitchen time to zero. Thirty years later, Kraft recycled the Handi-Snacks name for cheese and crackers with a red plastic stick. Same brand, completely different product.
Discontinued: 2004-2005
Graham cracker crust on the bottom, cream cheese on top. Kraft sold these refrigerated bars in strawberry, white chocolate raspberry, classic cream cheese, and chocolate chip. People loved them. A Kraft marketing director later said the bars were discontinued "due to challenges within manufacturing capabilities." The factory couldn't keep up. Some users remembered struggling to stop at one bar. Some parents quit buying them because their kids ate three in a sitting. They were that good.
Discontinued: Early 2010s
These frozen bagels came stuffed with cream cheese. Pop one in the microwave for sixty seconds, and breakfast was done. Kraft offered them in original, cinnamon, and strawberry flavors. The bagels captured how people ate in the 2000s: racing out the door with coffee in one hand and food in the other. It was before people worked at home, and speed mattered more than sitting down.
Discontinued: 2022
Low-fat cookies ruled the 1990s. Every cookie had 60 calories each, made from wheat starches, corn syrup, sugar, and hydrogenated vegetable oil. They often sold out everywhere. Then people stopped caring about low-fat and started worrying about high fructose corn syrup instead. The cookies became "phony health food." Snackwell added fat back in 2019. Consumers hated the new taste. And the cookies were never seen again after that.
Discontinued: Mid-1990s
Kraft bought this brand in 1985 to compete with Häagen-Dazs. The ice cream contained 16% butterfat and used all-natural ingredients. No stabilizers, no emulsifiers. An American company run by a German chef picked a Swedish name because the founder liked Sweden's image: "good, clean, wholesome." The ice cream brand was discontinued after Unilever bought Kraft's ice cream division in 1993.
Discontinued: Unknown
A plastic bottle filled with Kraft Mac and Cheese powder. You could shake it on popcorn, vegetables, whatever you wanted. No pasta required. Kraft tried to sell just the cheese powder by itself, the way companies sell Parmesan in shaker bottles. But the concept didn't catch on.
Discontinued: February 2005
Gummy snakes, chickens, and squirrels shaped like they'd been run over by cars. Tire tread marks pressed into the candy. Kraft released them in the summer of 2004. The New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said the candy taught kids to be cruel to animals. Kraft pulled the gummy candy in under a year. Sales were strong, but the protest won.
Discontinued: 1990
General Foods created these microwave meals. Then Kraft and General Foods merged, and Kraft put its name on the box. The two divisions fought. The meals died six months after launch. Corporate politics killed them, not bad sales.
Discontinued: 2004 (original); 2011 (Popsicle relaunch)
These frozen treats made $100 million in year one back in the late 1970s. Five years later, annual sales hit $300 million. But General Foods wasn't a frozen food company. Production costs ate the profits. Kraft discontinued the frozen food item. When Popsicle brought them back in 2004, people complained they felt different, looked different, tasted different.
Discontinued: 2015
Kraft released this in 2010. Imagine mac and cheese with seasoned breadcrumbs to sprinkle on top. Three flavors: cheddar, four-cheese, and Old World Italian. The box cost more than regular Kraft Dinner. The company bet people wanted fancy mac and cheese. Not enough did. Five years later, it was gone too.
Discontinued: December 2008 (phased out in 2009)
Revenue dropped by a third between 2005 and 2008. Kraft pulled these from stores and spent the marketing budget on Jell-O pudding instead. The 2008 recession made companies cut weak products and focus on winners.
Discontinued: December 2008 (phased out in 2009)
Same story as the pudding cups. Revenue fell a third in three years. Kraft stopped making them and put resources into products that made more money. The recession forced choices.
Discontinued: 2008
Kraft tried turning mac and cheese into crackers in 2007. The idea was to put mac and cheese flavor in your pocket. Sales missed targets. One year later, the crackers were discontinued.
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