Snacking Through The Decades: 1950s & ’60s - Canteen (2024)

Today we’re travelling back to the middle of the Twentieth Century to check out the most popular snacks of the time period and see which of today’s favorite snacks emerged during the 1950s and 1960s.

1950s

Snacking Through The Decades: 1950s & ’60s - Canteen (1)With the recovery of the American economy came the emergence of fast food, a cultural shift that greatly affected American snacking. However, packaged snacks were not about to concede to the fast food trend.Peanut M&Ms, Atomic Fireballs, Certs Mints, Hot Tamales, PEZ candy, Pixy Stix, Smarties Candy Necklaces and Marshmallow Peeps were all candies developed during this decade. Snacking Through The Decades: 1950s & ’60s - Canteen (2)Popular packaged foods included Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes and Special K cereals,General Mills’ Trix and Cocoa Puffs cereals, Star-Kist Tuna, Minute Rice, Eggo Waffles, Pepperidge Farm Cookies, Ruffles potato chips, Rice-A-Roni, Ramen Noodles, and Haagen-Dazs Ice Cream.Tang was an extremely popular drink during this decade, and Ocean Spray beverages also emerged in this decade.

1960s

Snacking Through The Decades: 1950s & ’60s - Canteen (3)The decade of space exploration was also full of experimentation with new flavors, textures, and packaging for snacks and meals, including the first use of aluminum cans for food and beverage packaging.These developments led to products like Sprite, Coffee-Mate, Pop-Tarts, Carnation Instant Breakfast, Bugles, Yoplait Yogurt, Shake ‘n Bake, Cool Whip, Snacking Through The Decades: 1950s & ’60s - Canteen (4)Spaghetti-Os, Gatorade, Diet Pepsi, Doritos, Taster’sChoice, Quaker Instant Oatmeal, Campbell’s Chunky Soups and Pringles.Candy also made a resurgence with 100 Grand, Swedish Fish, Fruit Strip Bubble Gum, Lemonheads, Now and Laters, Starburst, SweeTarts, Tic Tac Mints, Trident Gum, Twizzlers and Swizzle Sticks.

These two decades were full of innovative developments, many of which have survived a half-century of additional product developments to still be found today in Canteenvending machines and Avenue Cs.

Snacking Through The Decades: 1950s & ’60s - Canteen (2024)

FAQs

What were the snacks in the 50s and 60s? ›

Popular packaged foods included Kellogg's Frosted Flakes and Special K cereals, General Mills' Trix and Cocoa Puffs cereals, Star-Kist Tuna, Minute Rice, Eggo Waffles, Pepperidge Farm Cookies, Ruffles potato chips, Rice-A-Roni, Ramen Noodles, and Haagen-Dazs Ice Cream.

What types of foods became available for the first time in the 1950s? ›

Food Innovations of the 1950's
  • 1950. Minute Rice. Kellogg's Sugar Pops.
  • 1951. Ore Ida Foods (frozen potato products) Duncan Hines Cake Mix. ...
  • 1952. Kraft Cheese Wiz. Mrs. ...
  • 1953. Eggo Frozen Waffles. Star-Kist canned tuna. ...
  • 1954. General Mills Trix. ...
  • 1955. Kellogg's Special K cereal. ...
  • 1956. Imperial Margarine.
  • 1957. Pam nonstick cooking spray.
Apr 11, 2014

What was the most popular snack in 1955? ›

M&Ms were the go-to candy back in 1948 after they had been used as rations during World War II. But by 1955, the newest hit was peanut—and for good reason, right? These little bursts of licorice were super popular—but probably for advertising rather than taste.

What food to serve at a 60s party? ›

Of course, no retro co*cktail hour menu would be complete without some old-school appetizers like a cheese ball, fondue, and deviled eggs. Those beet dyed eggs were even topped with some fried Spam because meat in a can was all the rage. Canned fish was a staple in the 60s too.

What was the typical breakfast in the 50s? ›

Breakfast was viewed as the meal to set you up for the day so was, at the very least, porridge, followed by bacon, eggs and fried bread, then toast and home-made marmalade, and lots of milky tea. As children it was also when we had our vitamin tablets - Haliborange and Adexolin capsules.

What are the 4 food groups in 1950? ›

In the 1950s, the USDA developed the Daily Food Guide, which focused on 4 main food groups (milk, meat, vegetables and fruit, and bread and cereal) and introduced serving sizes (Figure 2) (12).

What did kids eat for breakfast in the 50s? ›

What was food like in the 1950s? Breakfast in my case was cold cereal in summer, hot cereal in winter. Always orange juice - frozen back then unless maybe you lived in Florida or Southern California. Eggs and bacon, pancakes or waffles would be a rare Saturday morning treat.

What was the biggest snack trend in 1954? ›

1954: Marshmallow Peeps

The original candies were made by hand, but in 1954 Born invented a machine to mass produce his Peeps. Now the company, Just Born, makes about 4 million Peeps every day!

What was the biggest snack trend in 1951? ›

1951: Dunkin' Donuts

I mean, Dunkin' still makes a mean donut to this day. But back in 1951, a year after the company's inception, everyone was snacking on those frosted doughy delights when the munchies hit.

What were the popular snacks in 1953? ›

The 1950s brought treats including the Hot Tamales candies in 1950, Eggo Waffles and Cheez Whiz in 1953 and Trix Cereal in 1954.

What was junk food in the 1960s? ›

Quite a few junk foods had their start in the 1960s. Treats like Ding Dongs and Chips Ahoy! as well as cereals such as, Froot Loops and Lucky Charms all were created in the 1960's. Kids young and old started to have a variety of treats to consume and these junk foods became very popular.

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