SweeTarts
sweet and sour candies
SweeTarts (; officially stylized as SweeTARTS) are sweet and sour candies invented under the direction of Menlo F. Smith, CEO of Sunline Inc., in 1962. The candy was created using the same basic recipe as the already popular Pixy Stix and Lik-M-Aid (Fun Dip) products, all of which are currently manufactured by Ferrara Candy Company, a division of Ferrero.
History
In 1963, SweeTarts were introduced with the same flavors as the popular Pixy Stix: cherry, grape, lemon, lime, and orange. Taffy products are also produced with the SweeTarts brand.
Sunline, Inc., became a division of the Sunmark of St Louis' group of companies, which was later acquired in 1986 by Rowntree Mackintosh of the United Kingdom, which was, in turn, taken over by Nestlé. The Willy Wonka brand candies were developed by Sunmark in a joint venture with The Quaker Company. Sunmark eventually acquired the rights to Willy Wonka and established a division with that name which produced the Willy Wonka brands. The Wonka symbol was subsequently applied to most Sunmark brands. Nestlé has since sold its confectionery businesses to Ferrero SpA.
In 2022, SweeTarts sponsored the TikTok Film Festival in an attempt to reach out to members of Generation Z due to its declining popularity.
Related products
SweeTarts also come in a variety of other products including gum.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “SweeTarts” as sweet and sour candies. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as sweet and sour candies. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7655064. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1962, 1963, 1986 and 2022.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “SweeTarts” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.