What Flavor Is the Mystery Airhead?

Airheads are a taffy-style chew made by Perfetti Van Melle in Erlanger, Kentucky, and sold since 1985.² The White Mystery bar comes in a white and silver wrapper, with question marks where the fruit picture would be. It launched in the summer of 1993.

Where the idea came from

The best first-hand account is from Matthew Fenton, who was assistant brand manager for Airheads at the time.¹ Going through consumer mail, he found a letter from a teenager suggesting, among other ideas, "a white bar with a mystery flavor".

The team tested it at a local elementary school against another new-flavor candidate. The white bar was not a new recipe. It was one of the most popular existing flavors, made without color. The two candidates scored almost the same, but the kids argued about the white one, and only 5% named its flavor correctly.

White Mystery launched that summer. By Fenton's account it quickly became the No. 2 seller in the range. He says he knew the flavor when he left the company in 1997, calls it a trade secret, and notes it may have changed since.

How it is made now

The usual explanation is a production one. Instead of stopping the line to clean between flavors, the factory keeps running and leaves the color out during the changeover. The white bars carry whatever flavor was running, or a blend of the outgoing and incoming ones.

That would explain why bars taste different from pack to pack. It is widely repeated, but Perfetti Van Melle has never confirmed it. Fenton's account does not confirm it either; his test sample was a single flavor.

So the honest answer is one or two of the regular fruit flavors, unlabeled, by a rule nobody outside the company knows.

Why nobody can name it

Take the color away and most people struggle to identify even a flavor they know well. Color sets the expectation before the candy reaches your mouth, and the brain uses it to sort what it tastes. That is what the 1993 school test showed, and it is the whole product.

Blue raspberry is the same effect run in reverse: a color with no fruit behind it, which people identify instantly because they have learned to. The red Swedish Fish sit in between, a color everyone knows attached to a fruit nobody has named.

What it means if you make candy

Color is part of your flavor spec. Switch to natural colors, or change a shade, and people will report a flavor change even when the flavor is identical. Test color and flavor together, every time either one changes.

Mystery still sells. Energy drinks such as Alani Nu's Cosmic Stardust use the same idea: give people a puzzle and they talk about it. It works best when the underlying flavor is one they already like.

For more on how candy flavors are built and processed, see confectionery.