Skittles is restoring a little balance to its flavor lineup this month. The company announced that starting in October, the lime-flavored Skittles will be back after eight years away. That also means the green apple-flavored candies will be put away for a while.
Skittles launched in 1979 with five flavors – orange, lemon, lime, strawberry and grape. This lineup was changed in 2013 when the company announced that green apple had out-performed lime in taste tests, though some fans disagreed. Now, according to a report by PEOPLE, lime-flavored Skittles are back permanently. The Mars Wrigley company plans to keep this change, though, of course, it could always change its mind again.
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Lime Skittles have made brief appearances here and there in their time off the shelves. Some special event packs and seasonal releases had the old lime flavor in them, and earlier this year Skittles released an “all-lime pack” for a brief while. In hindsight, this may have been a sign of the flavor’s grand return this fall.
Of course, the switch will be bittersweet for fans of the green apple flavor, and right now, there’s no word on plans for green apple to move to another pack. Wrigley’s senior brand manager Fernando Rodrigues said: “Green Apple has had a good run, but the fans have spoken and it’s time for lime to return to the rainbow. What better way to bring better moments to our loyal fans, than with the return of the most asked about flavor? The joy of Lime can’t be denied anymore. It is back. This time for good.”
It’s worth noting that it may take time for store shelves everywhere to reflect this flavor change, depending on how many green apple packs they have in stock. Mars Wrigley plans on sending out the new lime-flavored packs this month, but it could take as long as a year for all the green apple packs to come out of circulation. This includes both Original Skittles and Sour Skittles.
In the meantime, Skittles has a flavor for just about everyone somewhere in its lineup. Original Skittles come in the red packs while Sour Skittles come in green – with sour grape, sour lime, sour lemon, sour strawberry, sour orange and sour green apple flavors. There are also purple packs of Wild Berry Skittles, yellow packs of Brightside Skittles, and plenty of others that rotate out seasonally. With Halloween just around the corner, it’s the perfect time to dial in your own candy preferences.
