We don’t taste test new products for our health. In fact, it turns out that eating every single new snack, sauce, and ice cream isn’t all that great for you (but we’ll worry about that down the road). Rather, we taste test new products so we can tell you which ones are worth buying and then you can try them, too. So ,which new groceries made it to the top of your best-of list this year? That’s what we asked you, our readers, earlier this month—and these are your picks for the best new products of 2024.
And the winners are …
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Hey, you guys have good taste in chips. These new Ruffles that came out last summer earned 10 out of 10 Sporks in our taste test. They’re sweet, salty, tangy, and spicy all at the same time. Our reviewer described them as tasting “essentially like sweet chili sauce with a bit more depth of flavor and a salty, satisfying crunch.”
Wait, why didn’t anyone think to make a canned Shirley Temple sooner? We can’t say for sure, but we can say that this new 7UP Shirley Temple is sweet and tasty, just like lemon-lime soda spiked with grenadine. There were some wild new sodas on shelves this year, including a Pepsi that tastes like gingerbread and a Coke that tastes like Oreos, but y’all like to keep it simple, and we love that for you.
What a coinkidink—this was our pick for the best new candy of 2024, too! These hard caramels have a bright, tangy green apple flavor that’s the perfect complement to the rich, buttery taste of a Werther’s. If you don’t trust us that a hard candy is the best new candy of the year, then trust our readers.
Sometimes the best new product is actually a returning product with a few minor adjustments, like these Raspberry Uncrustables. In their previous existence, they were made with whole wheat bread; now they’re made with that soft, squishy Uncrustables white bread we all love, and they’re better than ever—even our readers agree.
Everyone loves ranch dressing. And everyone loves that little cup of greasy garlic sauce you get with pizza at Papa John’s and Domino’s. Well, Hidden Valley did the world a solid and combined the two into one delicious, reader-approved condiment. Seriously, if you eat a lot of frozen pizza, you should have a bottle of this on hand.
Howdy! I’m Gwynedd, Sporked’s managing editor. I live in Los Angeles and have access to the best tacos the U.S. has to offer—but I’m a sucker for a crunchy Old El Paso taco night every now and then. I’ve been at Sporked since 2022 and I’m still searching frozen mozzarella sticks that can hold a candle to restaurant sticks.
Why you should trust me: I’ve been a journalist for 20 years (yikes), a consumer of food for 40-plus years, and I’m truly hard pressed to think of foods I don’t like (or that I can’t tolerate at the very least). Oh and one time I cooked my way through Guy Fieri’s cookbook and wrote about the journey through Flavortown.
What I buy every week: Trader Joe’s Original Savory Thins. Fat free plain yogurt (usually Fage or Nancy’s). Honeycrisp apples. Sweet cream coffee creamer for my at-home Americanos. A frozen cauliflower crust pizza and some jarred mushrooms to top it with. Old El Paso Stand ‘N Stuff taco shells and Gardein Ground Be’f, even though I think “be’f” is a nightmarish contraction.
Favorite ranking: Stouffer’s frozen dinners. I don’t own a microwave (I get my cancers the old fashioned way!), so I love taste testing things that I don’t really buy to eat at home.
Least favorite ranking: Soy sauce. Don’t get me wrong, I love soy sauce—but consuming that much sodium in one sitting is probably illegal in some countries. Our frozen enchilada taste test was a close second; the smell of microwaved corn tortillas still haunts me.
Thoughts? Questions? Complete disagreement? Leave a comment!
Gwynedd Stuart
Vinz Karl
Ariana Losch
Jon Gutierrez
Thoughts? Questions? Complete disagreement? Leave a comment!