A woman says she found a mysterious object in a pack of Watermelon Sour Patch Kids. After she posted it online, the company responded to make what some deem a strange request.
After she complied, she says it ghosted her.
On Aug. 2, Steph (@stoofanie) posted a recording of the exchange she purportedly had with Sour Patch Kids on X, formerly Twitter. Per the timestamp, their conversation began on July 25.
Steph messaged the company, “This was in my Sour Patch Kids Watermelon package.” Her message includes a photo of the item, which is about the same size as a piece of the beloved candy but blackened, grooved, and inedible-looking.
Sour Patch Kids asks her to run experiment
The recording shows that Sour Patch Kids responded by asking Steph to “run a little experiment” by immersing the item in a glass of warm water for 15 minutes. “Let us know if it breaks, dissolves, etc.?” it wrote from its verified X account.
Later that day, Steph sent a photo of the item in water. The item appears even darker but otherwise intact after soaking for 15 minutes.
“Doesn’t dissolve,” she wrote.
Forty-five minutes later, she followed up with a second photo, showing that the object left behind a greasy-looking residue and some black crumbs when removed from the water.
The next day, having still not received a response from Sour Patch Kids, Steph messaged, “Cool.” She later wrote, “It smells.”
Two days later, with no reply from the company, Steph messaged, “Hey. You there.”
Sour Patch Kids purportedly still did not respond.
After not hearing back from Sour Patch Kids for about a week, Steph posted the recording of their messages on TikTok and accused it of “ghosting” her.
‘What dissolved?’
The exchange appears legit.
On July 24, @Steph_Snodgrass posted the same photo Steph used on X. “So uh @SourPatchKids what do you think this is that I found in a bag of the watermelon Sour Patch Kids? I gagged when I stuck my hand in there and almost put it in my mouth,” @Steph_Snodgrass.
On July 25, the company replied from its verified account, “Can you send us a DM so we can take a closer look at this for you?”
Steph’s TikTok has 5.5 million views as of Friday. People are pretty put off by whatever was in that bag, as well as Sour Patch Kids’ response.
Many accused the company of trying to get Steph to destroy evidence. One joked that if the item had dissolved, the candy company would’ve responded, “What dissolved?”
Another said that if this happens again, “DO NOT drop the whole thing in water. They want you to delete the evidence.”
TikToker @Samjk17 suggested that Sour Patch Kids stopped responding because it didn’t like the outcome. “They said, ‘that’s not the kinda result I wanted,” they wrote. Steph replied, “Omg the way I just laughed.”
A few people believe that Sour Patch Kids was actually just trying to figure out what it was, such as burnt sugar, rotten gelatin, or “solidified gunk from the machining process.”
Mondelez International, the maker of Sour Patch Kids, didn’t respond to inquiries sent via email and its contact form on Thursday morning.
Steph didn’t respond to a direct message sent via TikTok Thursday morning.
Finally, a sign of life
After her Sour Patch Kids TikTok went viral, Steph says she heard back from the company.
She says it apologized and asked her to fill out a form detailing where she bought the candy and how much she paid.
She’s not worried about it, however. “I don’t expect anything. I highly doubt I’ll get anything,” she says.
Steph just wants to be sure that no one else opens a bag of the sweet and sour treat and finds a strange black object.
She says she posted it to X because the Sour Patch Kids account is funny.
“When they stopped responding, that’s when I was like, ‘I’m just gonna mess with them,'” Steph recounts.
“I’m not gonna yell at them cause I understand it’s a quality control.”
@stoofanie I guess @Sour Patch Kids is ghosting me now. I just want to know whatever is in this package isn’t going to be in other packages. #fyp #fypシ #fypシ゚viral #fypage #fyppppppppppppppppppppppp #candy #sourpatchkids ♬ Bitin' List – Tyler Childers
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