People mindblown after discovering the real meaning behind Pop Tarts name
It's not because of the way they pop out of the toaster
Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Images
Topics: Food and Drink, Social Media
Bec Oakes
Topics: Food and Drink, Social Media
In the early 1960s, one of Kellogg's biggest competitors, Post, invented a way of dehydrating food and enclosing it in foil to keep it fresh, using the process to create a new toaster pastry called 'Country Squares.'
The company revealed their new product before it was ready to go on sale so Kellogg's rushed to develop their own version, hiring Hekman Biscuit Company manager Bill Post to create the toastable treat and get it into stores before their competitors.
And thus, the Pop-Tart - originally named Fruit Scone - was born.
Speaking to News Channel 3 in 2021, Post said: "To get that done, I had to break every rule in the book.
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"[..] There were so many naysayers. Some of my good friends would say, 'I don't know Bill.' They would tell us it's not such a good idea."
But, despite the hurdles, Post and the company managed to get around 10,000 samples ready to be sent out in only four months.
Originally coming in four flavours: strawberry, blueberry, brown sugar cinnamon and apple-berry, Pop-Tarts became so popular that Kellogg's couldn't keep up with demand.
The first shipment to stores sold out in just two weeks and the company was forced to run adverts apologising for the empty shelves.
In an alternative universe, it could be Fruit Scone in our cupboards instead, however, Kellogg's decided to give them a much more exciting name - Pop-Tarts.
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Although, this doesn't come from the way they pop out of the toast as you'd imagine, but rather the Pop Art movement that emerged during the mid to late 1950s.
A video shared to X (formerly Twitter) explains: "Thinking about it, well it pops out of the toaster so it has to be pop-something. And Andy Warhol was a famous artist. They called him a pop artist.
"That's something called anchoring where you take something that's already in the brain and use that. So they called [them] Pop-Tarts."
Sure enough, Pop-Tarts website also confirms this, writing: "It was called “Fruit Scone.” But that sounded terrible. So we took inspiration from the Pop Culture movement of the day and renamed it 'Pop-Tarts'."
And social media users were shocked to learn the real meaning behind the name.
One X user wrote: "You tellin me this whole damn time they were called pop tarts because it was a damn play on words about pop art. Are you kidding me?"
Another said: "I am way too excited about this fact, please please please be true," while a third simply commented: "What the hell?"