Let’s pretend it’s January, because I’m ready and excited to present to you the #new chips, cookies, cereals, and assorted garbage I found in the wild during 2025!!

Last year, we started a new (temporary?) Panic tradition — at the very end of our Monday status meeting, I run through all the new snacks I’d found in the last week. Then we gather in the kitchen and try them. Either everyone is very accommodating or they’re just afraid to say anything, but it’s been a lot of fun.

(Sidebar: should we livestream our Monday taste tests? If so drop a comment in the chat. First I’d need to figure out how you do a so-called “live stream”)

I hope you enjoy this collection.

Along the way, I’ll try to call out anything particularly interesting.

Want to see more? Browse my #new posts trapped forever on Twitter, or read The Blog Is Back. (Also Snacks.), Some #New Snacks, #New Snacks July ’23, and finally, The Snacks & Cereals of 2024.

Snacks!!

Fine. I guess we’ll start with some chips. (For the record, I do not recommend the Salted Caramel Lay’s.)

Have I ever seen licensed Takis before? Do they hold an auction for this kind of thing? If so, Takis won and showed up this year with two Wicked-inspired flavors. Emerald Heat (Habanero & Cucumber) and Spellbinding Sweet (Sugar & Cinnamon).

Not to be outdone, Hostess clearly won the snack cake auction… but didn’t do anything notable, flavor-wise.

Just acknowledging out loud that there was a special Pringles × Miller Lite collaboration.

Kettle Chips: They’re Always Good®. Despite being acquired by the Campell Soup Company in 2018, this company keeps operating at a high bar — and is somehow still headquartered locally in Salem, Oregon.

And yes, these Chili Crisp chips were quite good. (Was this the first Chili Crisp chip?)

Let me make sure I understand this correctly: these Funyuns taste like Sour Cream and… Funyuns, creating a recursive loop that will crash most modern computers.

Back to it:

Now, this was interesting:

These four new Frito-Lay products are a perfect time capsule of 2025, because instead of SIMPLY NKD (naked), they might as well have been called SIMPLY RFK.

Inspired (threatened?) by the strongly-hoarsed beliefs of our current Secretary of Health and Human Services, Frito-Lay, in reportedly record-breaking dev time, turned around a full line of chips free of artificial flavors and dyes.

Here’s the thing. They’re good. They tasted great and didn’t leave my fingers permanently stained Flamin’ Hot Red. I don’t know how I feel about any of this. 2025.

Speaking of health trends, you’re going to see a lot of PROTEIN in these pages in the future… we’re in the throes of protein madness… see you next year. (These had a texture that did not work well for any of us.)

Let’s continue:

Now, a brief intermission:

What on earth is happening over at Cup Noodles???

(As a side note, I love how these labels have perfect “designed in Japan” graphic design layouts, especially the Pumpkin Pie. It looks kind of like a title screen in the DLC expansion of a Nintendo Switch game? I’m not sure how to quantify this, but I feel it. That type. Just me?)

Anyway, yes, we ate them!

The Pumpkin Pie was so sweet, it was borderline inedible. The Turkey Dinner was fine! Cup Noodles has discovered that morons like me will buy whatever thing they make.

I appreciate this.

Oh yeah they just kept at it.

Let’s continue:

A brief sidebar on these m&m’s. I was so excited for this product, because I love honey roasted peanuts. My dream: they were going to wrap honey roasted peanuts in chocolate and a candy shell, which seemed like it might be incredibly good.

The reality: the wrapped regular peanuts in chocolate, a candy shell, and a very strong and fake-tasting honey flavor.

This product was a crushing sadness.

Let’s keep going:

There was a very interesting Pringle bundle that popped up at the end of the year:

You get one “Mystery Flavor” of Pringles, and you get a “Pringamabob” — a figurine.

What was the “Mystery Flavor”, you ask?

Well, that’s certainly ONE way to get rid of unsold inventory! (Thanks, Kaleigh, for capturing this moment.)

I can’t stress how good and powerful the “Pringamabob” turned out to be:

Yes, I got a “SNAXOLOTL”.

I am hoping for a post-apocalyptic future where an alien civilization finds this buried in the earth.

Let’s continue:

(Those S’Mores were really good.) And now, a quick spotlight on Hostess:

Two celebrity-focused Oreo variations dropped:

“Posty’s Swirled Salted Caramel and Shortbread Flavor Creme” and “Selena’s Chocolate & Cinnamon Creme Cookies”. Both of them were pretty good! I appreciated the fancy packaging and the feeling of sharing a snack with some of my favorite stars.

Note: RITTER SPORT REMAINS UNDEFEATED.

Every single product they make is a slam dunk!! They have never failed. I loved this “Duo” line, getting two flavors in one was a treat, and a new size that no longer fits in a sport jacket. They all taste like real things. They’re so good.

I will once again hope that 2026 is the year I can visit Ritter headquarters. Let’s do it.

Continuing on,

(First of all those Sargento Cheese Bakes were good. Cheese really was the first ingredient!)

But I’d like to take a moment to discuss “Ritz Crackers Sunkissed With A Nice Tan”.

The really went for it with the foil packaging, but I think the idea here was that they turned up the oven a couple more degrees, so the Ritz were a little more toasted. It wasn’t super noticeable. But it was interesting! I might’ve just gone with “Ritz Extra Toasted”.

Some good news:

Dave must have gotten parole after the grisly murders* and is back to developing new products! These were pretty good and didn’t feel too gross!

* please note despite the company name, dave did not, in fact, commit any murders. just joking.

I spent a very long time looking at the back of this box. Why is there a milkshake? Who put a milkshake there? What does a milkshake have to do with Hot Honey Cheez•It? It’s a good looking milkshake. But what does it mean? Is it a Cheez•It milkshake?

This was never explained.

So, moving on,

It’s always fun when brands try to come at other brands. Lunchables × Uncrustables, fight:

The key differentiator here is “No Thaw”, but I’m sorry, dipping a peanut butter wedge into a thing of jam is just not the right experience. I do appreciate the attempt, Lunchables!

I’ve never in my life seen a dehydrated astronaut ice cream in “pop” form. What it lacked in curb appeal, it made up for in taste.

I gotta say I quite liked this Cheez•It Pizza. Ironically, we baked it in our fancy Ooni oven, deeply unnecessarily. While the crust wasn’t exactly 100% cracker-like — a little soggy — the flavor was good. And it bakes fast!

Now, from the department of “packaging vs. reality”, I present to you: Kinder Kinderini.

“There is absolutely no way the product is going to look that well-defined looking guy”, I said to myself.

I was not wrong.

It was worth a shot. I like how suspicious he looks about the whole situation.

This year also brought a big Oreo × Reese’s moment:

Which were mostly… good? The Reese’s Oreo was much better than the Oreo Reese’s, which was hard to distinguish from an average Peanut Butter Oreo.

In Kraft Mac & Cheese News,

Yeah, they made Apple Pie Mac & Cheese. Hey, it’s Midwest O’Clock Somewhere!

New Uncrustables flavors are rare, so these surprised me. The “12G Protein” was the result of basically doubling the amount of peanut butter, which, frankly, I liked.

And it took a lot longer than expected, but 2025 was the year Big Candy® finally attempted to cash in on the State Fair Freeze Dried Candy trend.

Not content with letting the little guy resell their product in a Ziplock bag with a laser-printed label, no food handling permit, and a huge markup, the big guys are reselling their own product at a huge markup, instead! In general, I think these are really good. But I don’t know if they’re a temporary novelty, or something that’ll stick around.

And I always have to take note of the “Flavor Finalists” we get each year. The winner of this one, if you’re curious, was Bacon Grilled Cheese.

This is one of the worst things I’ve ever eaten in my entire life, bar none. Don’t do it. Cat food.

Talk about time capsules. What will 2027 think of this product? What do YOU think of this product? My teenage son thought it was funny. (And actually, the flavor was extremely good!)

I just want to point out that Buldak (The Stomach Lining Killer®) makes a Swicy flavor, and that flavor includes a small packet of sugar granules you sprinkle on top. This is true innovation.

Let’s continue, with some drinks and such. I think Sprite+Tea was a win, and the Campbell’s Grilled Cheese & Tomato was another highlight:

Finally, while I don’t drink coffee, I bought these on clearance for the office.

Did people like them? Let’s just say, they were on clearance.

I was surprised to see an entirely new entrant in the “snack cake” territory — Wonder, of the Bread Wonders.

I think the packaging is clean and nice, and the product itself super cute. The cupcake was the favorite.

And now, a quick moment of scientific research!!

The nation was rocked as Chex Mix declared themselves to be “NOW, CHEX-TRA DELICIOUS”?!?

What magic could they have done to improve an already generally fantastic snack? Well, first of all, they got rid of the bagel chips. And second of all…

…you’ll notice something in the new ingredients on the right — monosodium glutamate! (A reminder: MSG is not bad for you. No need to comment if you disagree lol.)

We decided to do a blind taste test in the office.

It’s hard to see in the photo, but the CHEX-TRA DELICIOUS version, on the left, is darker and more strongly seasoned. Which one did everyone like? The real-life progress bar appeared quickly:

The CHEX-TRA DELICIOUS recipe was unanimously preferred more than the classic Chex-Mix recipe. Chex wasn’t lying. Good job, Chex.

Who knew that a little MSG could make such a big difference?! (Hint: everybody knew. We all knew.)

This concludes the snack portion of the post. Now let’s take a look at

Cereals!!

Things were a little more reserved this year on the cereal front, but there are still some notable discoveries.

I could eat the entire box of Caramel Corn Chex happily in a single sitting, I bet. The texture is so good and it’s a great dry snack. Mexican Hot Chocolate Cinnamon Toast Crunch was good too!

I always love seeing how graphic designers approach 2000s nostalgia. The font choice in the green banner at the top of that box isn’t too bad, but there should be some more layer effects.

Cocoa Loops is the rare major brand extension that I find interesting. Not content with just Cocoa Krispies, I guess Kellogg’s is still chasing after Cocoa Puffs.

And please notice that Froot Loops Scoops “Cools Your Mouth”.

This one was interesting:

A rare dual-cereal mix. We determined that this one worked well dry, but turned into something quite different (negative) when mixed with milk.

And finally, what an incredibly wild box:

The cereal itself was heavily maple syrup flavored (and scented), with “Upside Down Marshmallows”…

…including “Flashlight”, “Demogorgon”, and “d20”.

But I was absolutely not prepared for this:

Soak that image in. Stare at it. Live it.

We all enjoyed the addition of the zipper just in case you thought Toucan Sam was, truly, a demogorgon.

And there you have it for cereals!

Now, before we leave… there was one last treat from 2025 that we mustn’t’nt forget…

Yes. You know it. Mountain Dew Baja Blast Pie.

This powerfully-hued pie was, shall we say, controversial. Some in the office loved in, and equated it to a humble, PepsiCo-developed variant of your traditional key lime. Others were put off by the piquant pungentness of an aquamarine abomination.

I liked it.

And that’s it for 2025!!

Thank you for joining me for another year of garbage. See you next year!

Yours,
Cabel