From
Rebecca Heslin, USA TODAY: Pop-Tarts have officially outgrown the breakfast aisle at grocery
stores. On Tuesday, the iconic pastry from the Kellogg Co. set up shop
in New York's Times Square with a flagship store and cafe centered on
the confection.
"It's the first time Kellogg has focused a store
on one product to cash in on its dedicated following and increase its
exposure," The Associated Press reports.
"The company hopes to make the new store a fixture in Times Square,
where two candy makers already have stand-alone emporiums, the Hershey
store and Mars Inc.'s M&M's World."
Pop-Tarts have been a Kellogg mainstay for nearly 50 years, according to AP, selling about 2 billion each year.
Kellogg
is renting a 3,000-plus square foot space where visitors can buy
Pop-Tarts souvenirs (think T-shirts and coffee mugs), a "varietizer"
where pastry fanatics can create custom-boxes of their favorite flavors
through a touch screen, or taste test the 30 flavors on hand in the
cafe.
These aren't your mother's Pop-Tarts, either. Try treats
like "Ants on a Log," or celery with peanut butter, sprinkled with wild
grape Pop-Tarts. Or the "Fluffer Butter," marshmallow spread sandwiched
between two Pop-Tarts frosted fudge pastries.
But there's one
offering from this sweet shop that has the blogosphere abuzz: Pop-Tart
sushi. Visitors choose three fruit-flavored pastries, which are then
minced and wrapped in a fruit roll-up to look like sushi. No fish
involved.
"It wasn't until the recent rise of social media that
Kellogg grasped the dedication of Pop-Tarts fans," AP writes. "Brand
manager Andrew Shripka says the Pop-Tarts Facebook page is one of the
social network's 20 most popular, surprising even some Kellogg
employees."