What Flavor Is the Pink Starburst?

Starburst started in Britain. Mars launched it there in 1959 as Opal Fruits, with strawberry, lemon, orange and lime. It came to the US in 1967 and took the Starburst name soon after. In the US, cherry replaced lime in the early 1980s.¹ The brand is now made by Wrigley, part of Mars.

US retail listings give the Original flavors as strawberry, cherry, orange and lemon.³ The pink one is the strawberry.²

Why strawberry is pink

Mars has never explained the choice, but the logic is plain. Four flavors in one pack need four colors you can tell apart at a glance, and cherry already has red. So strawberry is pink, and the color ends up doing most of the identifying. It is the same color logic that gave the candy aisle blue raspberry.

That is why people ask for "the pink one" rather than strawberry. Wrigley noticed. In March 2017 it announced limited All Pink packs. Its senior director of confections said people on social media talked about pink Starburst more than any other flavor.⁴

What it tastes like

Pink Starburst is candy strawberry, not fresh-picked fruit. It is sweet and jammy, with a soft, rounded finish and none of the green, seedy notes of a real berry. Next to cherry and lemon it is milder and less sharp, and that gentleness is probably much of its appeal.

Our strawberry profile covers the split between ripe and candy strawberry. The candy side usually leans on furaneol, a sweet, caramel-like compound that ripe strawberries also contain. It adds ethyl methylphenylglycidate, sold as "strawberry aldehyde", for the classic candy note, and fruity esters fill in the body. Mars has never published its flavor, so read this as how the profile is generally built, not as the recipe.

What the chew is doing

The US Original pack lists corn syrup, sugar and hydrogenated palm kernel oil. Then come less than 2% each of citric acid, dextrin, gelatin, apple juice from concentrate, modified cornstarch, natural and artificial flavors, and colors.³ Apple is the only juice named, so the strawberry comes from the flavor.

Two parts of that list shape the taste:

• Fat. Palm kernel oil is the third ingredient. Flavor dissolves into fat and comes out slowly as you chew, so the strawberry builds and lasts instead of hitting at once.
• Gelatin. It gives the chew its stretch. The US version contains it. The UK version is labeled suitable for vegetarians.¹

Building a pink-Starburst-type chew

You cannot put the trademark on your pack. A flavor house will build a "strawberry chew" flavor to your brief instead.

Ask for candy strawberry by name. A fresh-strawberry flavor tastes green and thin in a chew. Say you want the jammy candy direction, and send a reference.

Brief the fat. In a fat-rich chew, part of the flavor ends up in the fat. Tell your supplier the fat level so they can balance the flavor for it. A flavor tuned in a fat-free gummy will taste weaker here.

Add flavor and acid late. Chews are cooked hot, then cooled and pulled. Flavor added at the top of the cook loses its top notes, the light parts you smell first. See heat stability.

Keep the acid light. Much of pink's appeal is that it is the mild one. Use less citric acid than you would for cherry or lemon.

One label point. If artificial flavor supplies any of the strawberry character, US rules require the name to say so, as in "artificially flavored" or "natural and artificial strawberry flavored". See natural and artificial flavor.

What none of this gives you is the formula. The notes above describe how the pink piece tastes and how the profile is usually built. Mars has not said more.