Limited Edition Foods

The other day at the grocery store I noticed Kid Cuisine products had special Monsters vs. Aliens promotional packing to promote the movies release in theaters. This included 2 limited edition Kid Cuisine meals. One of the meals is a Limited Edition Monsters vs. Aliens Mac & Cheese meal. This meal has Monsters vs. Alien character shaped Mac & Cheese pasta. I bought this meal and boy is it the crappiest watered down cheese sauce ever. It is not like inedible, but it sure is not much different than eating pasta with no sauce. The meal comes with corn, which is about the same as corn always is. It also comes with Monsters vs. Alien character shaped fruit snacks. These are basically just regular fruit snacks, but they are not that great if you eat them with the meal because they end up still being frozen. It would be better to take them out when you make the meal and then eat them hours later or perhaps take them out when you buy the meal and then they will be thawed when you make the meal.

The other meal is Limited Edition Monsters vs. Aliens Chicken Breast Nuggets. This meal comes with Monsters vs. Aliens shaped chicken nugget characters, which is much like the Limited Edition Spongebob meal I saw a few months back. The meal comes with Insectosaurus and Alien Robot shape nuggets, corn, macaroni and cheese (not special shapes like the other meal), and vanilla pudding with B.O.B. (I believe this is a movie character) shaped sprinkles.

Today at the grocery store I spotted that they had special limited edition Eggo Waffles as a Hannah Montana promotion. It seems a lot of Kelloggs brand stuff is getting Disney tie in promotion designs, but a lot of them like the cereal and fruit snacks seem to be regular food releases without being planned as limited edition, although certainly the popularity of certain characters could bring some of the product lines to be short lived. The Eggo waffles with Hannah Montana on the box, though, were clearly labeled as Limited Edition unlike her cereal that does not seem to say anything like that on it and rather I think just says New still. Anyways the Hannah Montana limited edition waffles are the regular Eggo waffles with Hannah Montana themed designs. There are supposedly over 30 different designs. It seems they only come as Hannah Montana waffles in the 8 pack boxes, which makes them a more expensive choice than other frozen waffles even if you only buy Eggo (i.e. store brand is pretty much always cheaper and so is the bigger Eggo boxes), but they do seem like they could be a fun one time purchase for a special breakfast for Hannah Montana fans.

I went grocery shopping at a different grocery store (Fry’s) this week because there ad advertised some new item we had a bunch of coupons for that allowed us to end up getting them free. It turned out to not just be a good money saving choice, but I also found some seasonal and limited edition food items I had not seen before. I am not surprised to see that there are seasonal Spring Oreos, but it was nice to see them, as my normal grocery store (Safeway) seems to no longer ever have the seasonal Oreos since they did not ever have the Halloween Oreos last year. The spring Oreos taste the same as the normal Oreos, but the creme is colored yellow. The spring seasonality of them also includes 5 different spring themed designs on the cookies.

A special limited edition can of Tango fizzy drink is being released in their orange flavor. The limited edition can has the word Thanks! in place of the normal Tango brand name logo. The Thanks is related to thanking the public for saving the Tango brand. The brand is operated by Britvic Soft Drinks in the UK. In recent years the brand has had a sales slump and the company recently ran a “Save Tango” marketing campaign that blamed the decline on the British busybodies and an overobession with health. The campaign helped to sort of save the brand, although it seems unclear whether they ever expected to actually drop the Tango beverages in the near future or not. Anyways they have reported a 8% increase in sales of the 330ml cans in impulse outlets.

The Cocoa and Coffee Industry Board of Trinidad and Tobago has partnered with the Guittard Chocolate Company based in California to produce a limited edition dark chocolate bar made from Trinitario (I assume this means cocoa beans from Trinidad and Tobago) beans. This limited edition release is a batch of 1,000 bars. The first 300 bars are to be given out to participants at the Second Roundtable for a Sustainable Cocoa Economy going on at the Hyatt Regency in Port-of-Spain (capital of Trinidad and Tobago) this week. The other 700 bars will be given to delegates at the Fifth Summit of the Americas in April 2009. The Trinitario beans are said to be some of the highest quality cocoa in the world and it tends to sell at almost twice the price as other bulk cocoa.

Dunkin’ Donuts has a special Create Dunkin’s Next Donut Contest. To enter the contest you simply need to create a donut, name it, and explain your inspiration for your donut design. You can enter up to three times. The contest entry period ends on April 7, 2009. A dozen finalists will be selected and there will be a voting period May 15 through May 27, 2009. The voting will take place online on Dunkin’ Donut’s website. The winner of the voting will be announced on June 5, 2009, which is National Donut Day.

The prizes include cash, donuts, and the chance to have your donut creation appear as a limited edition donut at participating Dunkin’ Donut locations. The 12 finalists will each get $1,200, a year’s supply of donuts, and a trip for two to the Donut Bake-Off at Dunkin’ Donut University in Braintree, MA. The Grand Prize Winner with get $12,000 (not sure if they also get the finalist prize), and the chance to have their donut produced as a Limited Edition donut.

Limited Edition Lipton Ale is a special ale made by Maxim Brewery. The ale is being used to promote the new play by Ed Waugh and Trevor Wood that is about West Auckland’s victory in the first football World Cup. The limited edition Lipton Ale is named after the tournament organizer, Sir Thomas Lipton. The limited edition ale will have a limited release of only 1,000 bottles. The ale uses the same recipe as Maxim’s Brewery’s Double Maxim brew, although it has a small amount of roasted barely added to give it a different taste.

The play begins showing on stage at Durham’s Gala Theatre in April, but the Lipton Ale is already on sale. The Limited Edition Lipton Ale is on sale at the Gala Theatre, West Auckland AFC’s bar, and some North East pubs, which includes Dun Cow on High Street West. It might alos be available at supermarkets in the future with some of the profits going to the West Aukland Town AFC.

Back in 2007 Mountain Dew made limited edition Game Fuel to honor the release of Halo 3. The limited edition soda is returning this summer 2009. This time it will be promoting the World of Warcraft game. This World of Warcraft Mountain Dew (Mtn Dew on the bottle designs) limited edition promotion will include the Game Fuel reddish orange flavor that they had for the Halo 3 promotion, as well as a blue colored flavor. The red flavor for the World of Warcraft Game Fuel is called Horde Red and is a citrus cherry flavor. The blue flavor is called Alliance Blue is a wild berry type flavor. I believe the Horde Red flavor packaging has an Orc and the Alliance Blue limited edition packaging has a Night Elf.

John Smith’s brewing company is honoring its 50th year of sponsoring horse racing in the United Kingdom with a limited edition can design. The can is being released with their next sponsored race, Grand National at Aintree, coming up on April 4, 2009. The company first sponsored a horse race in 1960 when they sponsored the John Smith’s Magnet Cup in York. The company is known for their ale and sells one out of three cans that are sold in the United Kingdom. The limited edition 50th anniversary of sponsorship design will appear on the John Smith’s Extra Smooth and John Smith’s Original Bitter line of products. I am not exactly sure what the special horse racing packaging is supposed to look like, but it is said that it will make it stand out on the shelves with its racing imagery.

This year is the 50th season for the Buffalo Bills National Football League (NFL) team. In honor of it being their 50th season the Buffalo Bills continues their partnership with Perry’s Ice Cream as their Official Ice Cream with a special limited edition ice cream flavor release. The limited edition flavor is being called Rock Pile to the Ralph. Honestly, being someone who pretty much hates football and knows very little about it and barely even heard of the Buffalo Bills I have no idea what the significance of the name choice for this ice cream flavor, but I am sure there is some.

The Rock Pile to the Ralph ice cream flavor is made with a vanilla ice cream base. It has caramel swirls, chocolate covered peanuts, chocolate covered pretzels, and praline peanuts mixed in the vanilla ice cream. The packaging will feature a black and white collage of fan and team photos. This limited edition Buffalo Bills flavor is expected to be in retail stores in Western New York that carry the Perry’s Ice Cream brand of products starting in April 2009. I am not sure how long the flavor is supposed to be available, but I would assume at least through the beginning of the 2009 NFL season.