Some snack foods develop very loyal followings. One I learned about today, but I never tasted myself, is Keebler's Pizzarias. They were introduced in 1991 and were supposedly an instant hit:
Pizzarias were made in a novel process from fresh pizza dough and were available in three flavors: Cheese Pizza, Pizza Supreme, and Zesty Pepperoni. Launched in 1991, Pizzarias were reported to be the most successful snack food launch in Keebler's history, earning wholesale revenue of $75 million in their first year. Due to the success of the Pizzarias launch, Keebler was named "New Product Marketer of the Year" in 1992 by the American Marketing Association. Pizzarias also earned a Gold Edison award from the AMA for marketing excellence.
How loyal? Although discontinued in the 1990s (?), the brand has two Facebook groups and its own Wikipedia page. A Reddit posting to r/nostalgia mentioned Pizzarias 4 days ago.
Why would a successful brand be discontinued? Perhaps because management overlooked it. Actually, many managements (plural).
At the time of Pizzarias' introduction, it looks like Keebler was owned by United Biscuits. United Biscuits sold Keebler to Flowers Industries and Artal Luxembourg, a private equity firm in 1997. In 2001 Keebler was bought by Kellogg Company. In 2019 Kellogg sold Keebler to Ferrero SpA.
At some point, the right to the Pizzarias brand changed hands separately from Keebler. According to this Wikipedia article on Pizzarias, Utz Brands now owns the Pizzarias brand.
Assuming a unit wholesale price of 80 cents, Keebler might have sold 94 million units in 1991. If Utz were to reintroduce the product today, assuming a 50% reduction in unit sales (because of health consciousness) but an increase of, say, 25% due to higher population and faster social contagion, and 50% higher unit price, then a re-introduction could be worth $88 million in revenue in the first year. Or, social media could cause it to go viral, at double the 1991 unit sales, and then the first year would produce $352 million in revenue. Perhaps a vegetable topping-based flavor variant with onion, bell pepper, and celery? Or maybe a healthy homemade dip could go viral for being famous as the perfect complement to pizza flavor (but especially cheese pizza) chips, where the home-made diced vegetable dip is based on the Cajun "holy trinity" vegetables plus tomato?
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