15 Lunch Box Foods That Were Sadly Discontinued

The very first lunch boxes taken to school and work were metal pails, and the food inside certainly wasn't in pre-packaged single-serving portions. Over the years, companies competed to develop convenient, fun foods designed to fill them. Time-tested ones like Lunchables are still around, but others were discontinued for various reasons.

Looking at this list, it's easy to see that healthy eating was not always a priority for the manufacturers or consumers. It was more about making lunch enjoyable, and kids were likely glad to eat these treats first and take a few nibbles out of their sandwiches and fruit. Many of these lunch box foods enjoyed temporary popularity and the names still stick in people's memories. Others are harder to remember, but it's not unusual for fans to call for their faves to be brought back. The beloved Dunkaroos were a huge hit in the 1990s and now, the vanilla cookie and chocolate frosting duo has returned. In 2021, Nabisco brought back Oreo Cakesters after a 14-year hiatus.

The 15 lunch box foods below haven't reappeared yet, but unlike Dunkaroos and Oreo Cakesters, some didn't taste as good. Still ... who knows? Maybe some of these will re-enter the marketplace too.

Well before the first "Magic Mike" movie was released, Keebler started selling its tasty Magic Middles. These cookies were brought out in 2001 and had a 10-year run before calling it quits. They were made from shortbread, and filled with peanut butter or fudge. And when you bit into them, that creamy center just melted into your mouth. It was sold in full-sized bags, but the individual cookies could be put into sealed plastic bags or Tupperware for easy transport.

Keebler may have stopped manufacturing Magic Middles to use its equipment for other cookies, or because of poor sales, and there's no shortage of choices that use the same kind of fudge. Its E.L. Fudge Double Stuffed Cookies have thick fudge in the middle, others are dipped in fudge, and there are ones made with chocolate chips. But none have the dreamy, creamy center that Magic Middles did.

Back in the old days, kids needed a Thermos to bring drinks in their lunchboxes or were able to purchase milk at school. But in 1985, General Mills came up with Squeezit, an artificially-flavored fruit drink conceived with kids in mind. It contained 6.75 fluid ounces in an unbreakable, squeezable plastic bottle. The first four flavors were grape, orange, cherry, and red punch.

One of the best things about Squeezit was that it could be frozen beforehand and would still be cold by the time lunch rolled around. The bottle design was changed in 1992 to resemble cartoon characters like Grumpy Grape and Smarty Arty Orange. There were other varieties too, like Tropical Punch Lemonade and Life Savers flavors. General Mills also tried a 100% fruit juice from concentrate version and a color-changing iteration. Squeezit was very successful and was out there for over 15 years, but was discontinued in 2001.

Smiley faces can always brighten someone's day, and that's what United Biscuits had in mind when it started making Happy Faces biscuits. The cookies' first face design was based on The Beano's Roger the Dodger character and over time, another was created to resemble a little girl. There were three kinds of Giggles Cookies in one package: a face with a baseball cap, one with a bow, and one with a hand over the mouth. These weren't sold in serving-size packages and faded away in the 1990s.

United Biscuits was later absorbed by Nabisco, which doesn't have any cookies in its current lineup that look like Giggles. The E.L. Fudge is the closest comparison we can think of. Fortunately, Nabisco hasn't stopped making Oreos, Nutter Butter, and Chips Ahoy. But wouldn't it be cool if Nabisco rebranded Giggles Cookies as emojis? Those cookies were already smiling long before texting was invented. 

Peanut butter was always a lunchtime staple and nothing makes it taste better than sugar — this is why PB&J sandwiches will never go out of style. It's also a widely-used candy ingredient (hello, Reese's), and General Mills featured it in its 1980s Peanut Butter Boppers. The design was simple and effective, with small logs of peanut butter dipped in chocolate and other sweet coverings, then rolled in chocolate chips, crisped rice, and other crunchy coatings. The retro-style packages called to mind a 1950s theater marquee, and each contained six separately wrapped Boppers.

Peanut Butter Boppers came in decadent flavors like honey crisp, fudge chip, and cookie crunch; imagine biting through the crunchy coating and sinking your teeth into the creamy center. General Mills claimed that this treat scooped up 9% of the snack market after 90 days of its launch, and that's pretty impressive. As for why it was taken away, we don't see a clear answer. The company's Nature Valley bars filled the void somewhat, but the amount of creamy peanut butter in those just doesn't compare to Boppers.

Parents have been trying to get kids to eat more fruit since the dawn of time, and in the 1980s, lunch box alternatives were introduced. One was Betty Crocker's Fruit Corners' Fruit Wrinkles, launched in 1985. It was the sibling of Fruit Roll-Ups but was made differently. And one flavor's package read "strawberry fruit forms," which might have met the legal requirements, but looked kind of creepy.

Fruit Wrinkles looked like jelly beans and were eaten like raisins. That was a problem since kids could already have those at lunch. This snack wasn't anything new, like the flattened roll-ups, so they weren't as fun to eat. Still, the commercials claimed that it was a good source of vitamin C and was made with real fruit. The flavors included strawberry, orange, lemon, and cherry, but since Fruit Wrinkles were basically a boring step up from raisins, they were soon discontinued. Fruit Roll-ups and Gushers have stood the test of time because they have that novelty aspect that everyone goes for.

Roald Dahl's 1964 classic novel "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" was the inspiration for the 1971 movie starring Gene Wilder. The film had candies with names like Rainbow Drops and Invisible Fudge, but there weren't any Oompa candies in the story. Instead, Oompa Loompas were the characters who worked in the factory and helped sing the movie's memorable songs.

The Willy Wonka Candy Company was formed before that movie was released and was run by Breaker Confection, which was part of the Quaker Oats Company. The timing couldn't have been better, and one of its first releases was Peanut Butter Oompas; chocolate Wonka Bars were never introduced because the company couldn't come up with a workable recipe. Breaker Confection was bought by Sunmark Corporation in 1975 and eventually by Nestle in 1988. Oompas were made from 1971 to 1983 and tasted like Reese's Pieces. But in 2001, the company started making fruit-flavored Oompas. The Willy Wonka Candy Company had more success with its other offerings, like Nerds, but those are now made by other companies.

Carnation Instant Breakfast Powder dates back to 1965 and was added to milk for a quick meal — it's still around, but was rebranded as Carnation Breakfast Essentials. Its solid-form lunch box relative, Carnation Breakfast Bars, lasted from 1975 to 2020. Forty-five years in the competitive lunch box foods market is nothing to frown upon, and those bars were very popular in their heyday. Once they went away, protein bars filled in the void and still get put in lunch boxes, backpacks, purses, and gym bags.

But when Nestle introduced Carnation Breakfast Bars, it claimed that they had the same amount of nutrition as a full breakfast of bacon, eggs, and milk. So it's no wonder that kids and adults would have them in their lunch boxes, especially when they skipped breakfast. But the bars didn't taste savory — the flavors included chocolate and granola with peanut butter, with each individually-wrapped bar weighing a mere 1.46 ounces.