SPECIAL REPORT: All Candy Expo (part 2 of 2)

CHICAGO, Illinois (UrHo) -- This is Part 2 of Urban Honking's SPECIAL REPORT on the All Candy Expo from Laura Pearson and David Sampson. You can read Part 1 here.

ICEE Spray Candy: Not so NICEE.

Speaking of cracked out candy: ICEE Spray Candy. You know the super concentrated syrup that goes into ICEEs? It's like that, but as a fine mist dispensed from a teeny tiny spray can. The pictures say it all....

Funley's Stix in the Mud: A candy that stix with you.

The people at the Funley's booth were the friendliest candy folk we met at the ACE. How can you not love a mom-and-pop op that sends this follow-up email: "David Sampson came by our booth at All Candy Expo....
He took what we hoped would be some stellar pics and heard a bunch about us and our candy company.... How can we track down this fella and get him more info on the Funley's Fenomenon?"? (Answer: You cannot not love.)

Stix in the Mud are chocolate covered cookie bits--a bit salty, a bit sweet. There are also caramel stix and peanut butter stix and a classic rock flavor called Styx in the Mud and a bluesy flavor called Stix in the Muddy Waters. (OK, kidding about those last two.) In any case, it was well worth it to stop by and pick up Stix.

5-Hour Energy: When four hours just ain't enough.

You don't need to go to the ACE to know that energy drinks and shots--especially those promising hours upon hours of energy--are currently all the rage. And yet David and I realized neither of us had ever done a 5-Hour: the shot that guarantees "hours of energy without the crash."

By early afternoon, not only were we seriously craving anything but sweets and snacks, but we were also dramatically descending from the morning's sugary heights. So we hit Au Bon Pain for some "food" food, then each slammed a 5-Hr. Sure enough, we were soon buzzing around the expo once again. Sidenote: Do you know? One 5-Hr. Energy shot provides 8,333% of your daily Vitamin B12 needs. I am approx. 62% intrigued by this fact and 38% frightened.

Meat Snacks: Where's the beef? Oh, right here.

The ACE threw some meat snacks into the mix, some of which David sampled. He mostly just wanted to consume a few non-sweet foods. I was kinda hoping there'd be some fake meat varieties, but no such luck.
Instead, I kept busy posing with meat mascots and playing the claw game.

Hey! I won a T-shirt prize. Oddly enough, the shirt advertises Matador, a new brand of beef jerky that targets teens "with an action-driven lifestyle." Y'know, snowboarders, skaters, BMXers, people who love the claw game, etc. Apparently beef jerky "snack sticks" taste really good to people living on the edge.

Toxic Waste: Helping the planet while destroying your taste buds.

Toxic Waste is "hazardously sour candy" that comes in various forms, e.g., Hi-Voltage Bubble Gum, Nuclear Sludge Chew Bars, and Sour Spray Candy. (Oh no! More sprays!) Sure, they're ridiculously sour. But it occurred to me that the only thing truly hazardous thing about Toxic Waste is the marketing campaign. Rather than ride the "Go Green" wave, Toxic Waste is all about nuclear sludge, poisonous fumes, and chemical spills. But the Toxic Waste PR team has wasted no time in diverting attention away from this potentially uh, toxic image by promoting environmental awareness. On the website, the company offers games like Professor Sauernoggin and the Landfill of Doom (in which kids help Prof. Sauernoggin clean up the landfill), as well as a list of Earth Day Tips for Helping the Environment. At least they're blazing their own trail!

Le Whif: One moment on the lips, so NOT a lifetime on the hips.

Le Whif is a chocolate inhaler made in France. It's also the exact sort of innovation David and I were hoping to stumble upon at the ACE. "Combining chocolate and aerosol science," Le Whif is packaged in a sleek brown and pink lipstick-like tube. Each tube contains a single inhalation of fine chocolate powder, which packs a grand total of zero calories. Apparently, a Harvard professor came up with the idea. Figures! At the All Candy Expo, it was in an (Ivy) League of its own.

Le monsieur at Le Whif's booth was very eager to speak with me about the wonderful psychological and emotional and physical benefits of whiffing, but unfortunately he was out of samples!!! What?! NOOOOOO!!! So although I listened to his long and animated pitch, I cannot gush on and on about this curious calorie-less experience and just how far the combination of chocolate and aerosol science has come. The rep did say they want to extend the science of whiffing to other things--i.e., soup. Can you imagine inhaling a bowl of tomato bisque? Minestrone? Curious indeed.

Whiff it; whiff it good.

Candy Teeth: All up in our grillz.

Candy teeth/grillz seem to be something of a trend right now. We encountered quite a few versions. Taste never seems to be much of a concern with these things; it's all about the novelty factor.

Flavor 101: Move over açaí berry: the future lies in lulo.

Maybe the best thing David and I did at the expo was to attend a seminar called Flavor 101. Via PowerPoint presentations and taste tests, experts in the field taught us about the newest trends in exotic fruit flavors. Whereas pomegranate was all the rage a couple years ago, and then we saw the rise of fruits like açaí berry and mangosteen, tomorrow's market will be all about fruits like cupuaçu, rambutan, cherimoya, soursop (guanabana), lulo, and camu camu. Many of these flavors are already popular in other parts of the world, but they are just starting to show up on US shelves. Some are shockingly delicious and others taste like sunscreen. In any case, come quickly, guanabana!

Playing in Candy Land: More images from the expo.

Candy Names We Liked:

OOBZ TOOBZ
TANGY ZANGY BELTS
JUICY OOZERS
BIG FAT HISSEE FIT
NUT DEMONS

Candy Wrap-Up

As expected, the All Candy Expo was an intense sensory experience. Sights! Smells! Flava flaves! It was also very much an industry-only trade show in the sense that if you were wearing the right color of nametag--particularly the color that designated "buyer"--you were guaranteed much better treatment from candy reps. Had we worn suits and ties (ties featuring jelly beans/candy corn/M&Ms, of course) and gone incognito as confectionary and snack buyers, David and I surely would've gotten a whole new perspective on the candy biz. Oh well, next year...!

Despite a certain expo hierarchy, we met quite a few people--like the Funley's fellow--who were stoked that we were reporting for a food blog and who spoke very passionately about their products. Such vendors presented us with extra samples and press packets and (I think) recognized our mutual candy connection--that shared candy-related glimmer in our eyes (just before the 5 Hour energy shots finally wore off). After leaving the convention center, we reboarded the bus on Dum Dum Drive and headed home, expo-nentially more sugared up than before. And we learned this, too: After it's all about sweets and snacks, it's all about real eats and naps.