‘Natural Blue Raspberry flavor’: Woman buys Kroger’s Blue Raspberry Ropes candy. Then she reads the ingredient list

A woman who enjoys Kroger Blue Raspberry Soft & Chewy Ropes Candy took time to read the list of ingredients on the back of the bag, and forwarded a legitimate question.

What, exactly, is blue raspberry?

A creator using the name dropitlikeitsszot (@dropitlikeitsszot) has drawn more than 1.7 million views and 128,000 likes for a video put up on TikTok on Feb. 8.

"This message is for Kroger," she begins. "I just have a question. I'm eating your little ropes. Love these things. It's like chewing electrical wire without dying."

But then she questions the claim that there are no artificial flavors or certified synthetic colors, before showing the ingredient list on the back of the bag. Per Kroger's site, those are:

Sugar, Corn Syrup, Wheat Flour, Palm Oil, Glycerin, Citric Acid, Maltodextrin, Sodium Citrate, Gelatin, Natural Watermelon Flavor, Natural Blue Raspberry Flavor, Vegetable Juice (Color), Beta-Carotene (Color), Spirulina Extract (Color), Salt, Confectioner’s Glaze.

Skipping over the concerns about palm oil, as the World Wildlife Federation notes in an article, she wonders about blue raspberry and how that's natural.

What does it mean for a flavor to be 'natural'?

In a stitch TikTok, creator hydroxide (@hydroxide), a food scientist, explored the question, getting about 15,500 views so far since going up with it on Feb. 28.

"Let me take a stab at this," she begins. "So you and I can both agree right now, if we're both relatively sober, that blue raspberry does not exist. We all know it doesn't really exist. It's usually an ester combo of something like cherry, pineapple, a few other things. So blue raspberry flavor, in general, is not even raspberry flavored, but that's still the best Jolly Rancher, in my opinion."

"Natural," as she explains, is "basically anything derived from a plant or an animal" that acts as a carrier for that flavor.

"Medium chain triglycerides, ethanol, occasionally," she explains. "So, stuff that is, like, not made in a lab, versus artificial flavors are usually derived from petroleum or something else, so. And that does not mean they're putting gasoline in your food."

Commenter sheds further light

A commenter contributed further by stating, "My time to shine. I’ve been working in the flavor industry for 10 years now. So, natural flavor only means that all raw materials we used are extracted from natural sources. But CHEMICALLY it's the same. same. For a blue raspberry we’ll typically use molecules like ethyl butyrate, inonones, raspberry ketones and many others flavors are usually made out of 30–50 raw materials."

That commenter goes on to say, "Now the key difference between artificial and natural flavor is the way we obtain those molecules. Ethyl butyrate can come from oranges, but can also be obtained through a reaction using ethanol and butyric acid."

While that's not as fun as a theory another commenter floated—"You see, when a mommy flavor and a daddy flavor really love each other ..."—it further helps break down the difference between natural and artificial.

More about blue raspberry

Bon Appetit, exploring the history of blue raspberry, notes that blue raspberry came about in part over concerns about FD&C Red No. 2, a dye used in raspberry-flavored products. That opened the door to a Cincinnati company called Gold Medal to forward blue raspberry, using blue dye instead, in Sno-Kones.

Two frozen treats emerging in the early 1970s—ICEE and Otter Pops—boosted awareness of blue raspberry as a flavor and a concept.

"Common sense suggests that because the field of "red" flavors was already so crowded—cherry, strawberry, watermelon, cinnamon, cranberry, red apple—and there are scarcely any blue foods in nature, raspberry was simply traded from Team Red to Team Blue to avoid confusion among consumers," the author wrote.

The author also described the flavor as a "bizarre not-really-a-flavor that's a lovely shade of antifreeze and tastes like a jug of corn syrup decided to attempt suicide by vitamin C overdose."

@dropitlikeitsszot Natural Blue Raspberry Flavor! @Kroger ♬ original sound - dropitlikeitsszot

What commenters thought

Commenters to the original video had views on blue raspberry ready.

"Blue raspberry doesn’t exist," one contended. "The label lied. Class action."

Someone else declared, "I don’t know what that is, but I’m still gonna eat because blue raspberry has had me in the choke hold for the last…. Probably since my last life!"

"The amount of people that don't know that blue raspberries are just red raspberries before they ripen and turn red," another fancifully posited. "That's why they are so tart, just like limes and lemons."

The Daily Dot has reached out to both creators via TikTok direct message and email and to Kroger via email.

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