There was a time when entire chickens and even bread came in a can, and no one batted an eye. But as tastes changed, so did the grocery aisles. Many once-popular canned foods have disappeared, leaving behind only nostalgia — and maybe a few dusty cans in someone's basement.
Here are 17 fan-favorite canned foods that were discontinued for one reason or another.
Campbell's Pepper Pot Soup was a little spicy, a little funky, and a whole lot of fulfilling. It had been around since 1899 when it made its way from Philadelphia kitchens into cans. It had potatoes, onions, carrots, jalapeños, red pepper flakes, and beef tripe — an ingredient that either made people nostalgic or made them gag.
After over a century on the shelves, Campbell's quietly axed in 2010 because, apparently, palates became more sophisticated, and nobody looked forward to opening a can of beef tripe anymore.
But as with all love-it-or-hate-it foods, its cult following still yearns for its peppery return.
Just two years after Kraft Foods debuted it's now-famous boxed macaroni and cheese, hungry shoppers were introduced to Franco-American Macaroni and Cheese — a can full of long, spaghetti-like noodles drenched in an orangey, goopy cheese mess. There were no powder packets, no boiling — just crack open a can, heat it, and call it a dinner (sort of). It was first introduced in 1939 and marketed as the easy way to get homemade-style mac and cheese without any effort. And for a while, people were on board.
After a brief hiatus during World War II, it came back in 1949, with June Lockhart from Lassie convincing families it belonged on their dinner tables. Everything was fine until 2004, when Campbell's (which had owned Franco-Americans since 1915) pulled the plug, likely to push their Chef Boyardee line instead.
Fans still reminisce about it, with not one but various Facebook groups begging for its disgusting return.
Okay, technically not a canned food, but it was a canned beverage, and its discontinuation still stings. Pepsi Blue was PepsiCo's contender in the Cola Wars of the '90s, launching in 2002 — a day before Coca-Cola released Vanilla Coke (because all is fair in love and war). Pepsi Blue was a neon-blue, berry-flavored soda that looked radioactive and was marketed to teenagers. It got a massive marketing push — Britney Spears ads, movie placements, and even X Games sponsorships. But the sickly sweet taste and the use of Blue 1 dye (banned in some countries) didn't favor it.
Then Pepsi made things worse when it got caught posting fake online hype to boost sales, and the backlash was brutal. By 2004, Pepsi Blue was gone.
In 2021, Pepsi brought it back for a limited-time nostalgia run, but it didn't last.
In the '80s, Pac-Man was everywhere — arcades, cereal boxes, even your underwear if your mom had a thing for themed multipacks. Naturally, Chef Boyardee jumped on the bandwagon and turned it into pasta. Each can consist of mushy pasta like Pac-Men, ghosts, and dots drowned in a questionably thick golden chicken sauce. It definitely had zero nutritional value, but it tasted great, it was shaped like Pac-Man, and everything was all right with the world. But when the Pac-Man fever died down, so did the demand for this themed pasta. By the early '90s, it had vanished.
Today, you'll only find it in the dusty memories of '80s kids and the occasional eBay listing of empty cans.
You know the nation has a pumpkin spice problem when even SPAM gets in on the trend and sells out in seven hours. Yes, people willingly spend their hard-earned money on cinnamon-flavored canned meat — and fast.
In 2019, Hormel Foods dropped a limited edition Pumpkin Spice SPAM because, apparently, there's no food pumpkin spice can't corrupt. It hit SPAM.com and Walmart.com at 7 a.m. CDT, priced at $8.98 for a two-pack, and by 2 p.m., it was completely gone. Despite the initial hype, Pumpkin Spice SPAM never made a comeback.
Plastic pudding cups came along as a smarter, safer alternative to the metal cans that once held Hunt's Snack Pack Pudding — because nothing makes a snack more exciting than the possibility of slicing your tongue open. But in the '80s, someone finally realized metal plus pudding wasn't the best combo.
Too many kids (and adults) were scraping out every last bit and ending up with a battle wound. By 1984, the aluminum cans were out, and pudding was sold in less dangerous plastic cups.
Trader Joe's Bay Blend Coffee had its fans, thanks to its mix of Colombian Excelso and Mexican High Grown beans roasted dark enough to get that oily sheen coffee lovers either swear by or side-eye. It was bold, strong, and definitely not for the light roast crowd.
Then, in 2022, Trader Joe's quietly pulled it from shelves, blaming low sales. A company rep gave the usual explanation — if something doesn't sell well, it's out to make room for the next big thing.
At some point in 2018, a starving (possibly stoned) genius must have looked at a pack of Top Ramen, then at a can of Pringles, and thought, what if … both? And the unholiest, most beautiful fusion of processed food was born: Pringles Top Ramen Chicken-Flavored Chips.
It was aggressively salty, MSG-laden, and it tasted like someone had crushed up a ramen seasoning packet and sprinkled it directly onto your taste buds.
But the snack gods are cruel, and this otherworldly creation chips disappear fast. Now, you can find them on eBay for nothing less than $800.
A canned pasta that took the classic ravioli shape and made it round, because why the hell not? Campbell's RavioliOs were stuffed with cheese or beef, floating in a thick, tomato-adjacent sauce, and for kids in the '80s and '90s, this was peak after-school fuel. But they never quite reached SpaghettiOs-level fame, and at some point in the 2000s, Campbell's quietly discontinued them.
Another gimmicky pasta from Chef Boyardee, Tic-Tac-Toe's, was basically Xs and Os-shaped pasta swimming in ketchup water. But hey, it was a dinner and an activity in a can and marketed with the most '80s commercials one can imagine. It worked for a while — until it didn't.
For years, Campbell's Scotch Broth Soup was a cold-weather staple — thick, rich, and made of barley, lamb, carrots, and onions. It had that slow-simmered, homemade taste without requiring you to stand over a stove for hours. In 2023, without a particular reason, Campbell discontinued this beloved food in cold blood.
Dinty Moore is the king of canned stew, but in 2016, they made some enemies when they quietly gave the boot to one of their most beloved flavors: Meatball Stew. It had been on shelves since 1935 as a variation of the classic beef stew but with big, soft meatballs instead of cubed beef. It was filling and exactly what you'd want on a cold day. However, it seems the world just wasn't ready to embrace canned meatballs in gravy.
"All the sugar and twice the caffeine." That was the Jolt Cola promise, and for '90s kids and early 2000s gamers, this was the fuel of champions. It was the energy drink before energy drinks, beloved by students cramming for exams and programmers pulling all-nighters. But in 2019, it was discontinued.
Not every discontinued food gets a cult following, and Daisys and Whistles is proof. This snack crackers shaped like flowers and train conductor whistles existed, people ate it, and then one day — it was gone. If you remember it, congratulations, you have a niche memory. If you don't, you're not alone.
Trader Joe's is no stranger to yanking fan-favorite products, and their Vegetable Chili was no exception. It consisted of beans, tomatoes, peppers, and spices, and it was a solid meatless option that actually had some real flavor and texture — not just a sad, watery substitute for the real thing.
But at some point in the early 2020s, Trader Joe's quietly pulled it from shelves.
Altoids Sours were obsession-level good. These little tins of face-puckering fruit candy came in flavors like Raspberry, Tangerine, and Apple, with a sugar-coated punch that was as addictive as crack. Despite the cult following, Altoids pulled the plug in 2010, claiming low sales. Fans of the sour candy begged on the internet for decades, and some nifty collectors sold them for a small fortune on eBay.
In 2024, a company called Iconic Candy launched Retro Sours, which were heavily inspired by Altoids Sours but were not officially revived. Mars Wrigley, the original maker of Altoids, has confirmed they have no involvement, and Retro Sours don't use the exact same recipe. Still, they come in flavors like Mango, Tangerine, and Citrus and are available at Cracker Barrel and IT'SUGAR.
Snow Crop might not ring a bell now, but in the 1950s, it was a big deal in the frozen juice aisle — so big that it actually outsold Minute Maid for a while. Founded in 1945, the brand jumped into the booming frozen orange juice business, buying up thousands of acres of Florida citrus groves to keep up with demand.
Snow Crop was a household name for years, but in 1954, Minute Maid bought them out, and the brand slowly faded into the background. It stuck around for a few decades, but it quietly disappeared by the late '90s or early 2000s.
