When I was a kid, we used the term “unreal” to apply to stuff we though was so unbelievably good we couldn’t come up with a suitable superlative. Example: “Man, have you heard ‘Purple Haze?’ That Jimi Hendrix is freakin’ unreal.”
While we applied the term to food when we had — ahem — the munchies, we didn’t really believe the stuff was anything other than junk. When we stuffed ourselves while listening to Vanilla Fudge under black lights nobody gave a damn that the ingredients bore no relationship to anything one might find in the natural world. Our food, especially the stuff we craved, was nothing other than a miracle of modern chemistry.
But now the term applies to a new candy called “Unreal.” A candy that’s made from real ingredients…ingredients you don’t have to wince at when you see them on the label. (Full disclosure: people in my family are involved in the creation of Unreal Brands.)
I’ve known, of course, that Unreal was coming. I think they’re on to something. When people take a caloric splurge, there’s no reason they have to fill themselves with three-letter chemical compounds. And there is no reason you have to pay more for a natural product. By developing a good product and making it available in mass retailers, Unreal is trying to deliver better candy on a much larger scale — and going right up against the chocolate Goliaths, including M&M and Hershey.
Today, while shopping in a CVS, I came across the retail display pictured here. It looks like Unreal is off to a great start. I wish them big success. Go get some.
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