12 Early-2000s Snacks You Can Still Buy Today

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Food has an incredible ability to bring back thoughts and memories long buried. It's why many of us might have a favorite birthday dinner, a favorite restaurant to celebrate those extra-special accomplishments, or a dish that reminds us of a certain person. Even if you haven't lived through a particular era, food — especially snack foods — can capture a vibe and a feeling in a way that history books never could.

Interestingly, studies have discovered just why that is. In a nutshell, food activates all of our senses at the same time. We do more than taste it: We hear the crunches, smell the scents that waft open from a plate or an opened bag, we feel the creaminess of ice cream or the crispness of chips. It basically sends our brains into sensory overdrive and makes some incredibly strong memories. 

Speaking of memories, let's go back to the early 2000s. Boy bands were blasting from every radio, Napster was on every computer, and everyone had a favorite: Was it Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera? Blockbuster was still around, and everyone was flocking to theaters to see J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth come to life, and then, they were sticking around to see Harry Potter. Hanging out at the mall was still a thing, relief the world hadn't ended after Y2K was palatable, and snacks were the bomb. Fortunately, anyone hoping for a taste of some early-2000s nostalgia can still find some of these snacks today.

Sure, there are a lot of different types of nuts that can make for a delicious and nutritious snack, and when it comes to nuts, Planters is one of the undeniable go-to brands. But Planters is also the company behind Cheez Balls, which we would argue might be one of the country's greatest snack foods. They're perfectly bite-sized, have just the right amount of softness and texture, and anything that's neon orange, well, you know it's going to taste delicious, right?

Sometimes, though, companies do things that customers just can't explain, and in 2006, Planters discontinued Cheez Balls. Why? Was it some kind of cosmic payment come due for keeping the world safe during Y2K? It's the only explanation we've got. We weren't the only ones super disappointed by the disappearance of these cheesy snacks, and in case you missed it, they actually came back in 2018. It was supposed to be a limited-time thing, and why do you tease us like this, Mr. Peanut? 

We're talking about snacks you can still get, though, so as you can imagine, this one has a happy ending. In 2019, Planters announced that Cheez Balls were back for good, and while they can be difficult to track down, they're still out there ... if you look hard enough.

There's surprisingly little information out there on Scooby Doo Fruit Snacks, and we'd hazard a guess and say that's simply because they were such a part of the early-2000s snacking landscape that everyone just sort of thought they'd always been there, and they'd always be around. And it made sense. They felt like candy but had "fruit" right there in the name, and who doesn't love a cartoon (and movie) about a bunch of crime-fighting, mystery-solving friends and their massive dog? 

So, here's the thing. This was also the time when people were getting concerned about the potential harm that could come with artificial ingredients, and according to what little information we found out there on the information superhighway, it was 2015 when General Mills overhauled the Scooby Doo Fruit Snacks into something totally different, without the light blue gummies. People were angry with the sort of passion that's only reserved for favorite snack foods, and a Change.org petition popped up ... presumably written by Dean Winchester (okay, that was an early-2000s pop culture reference to end all pop culture references).

You can still get Scooby Doo Fruit Snacks today, and even though the new version of Betty Crocker's iconic gummies don't have the light blue one, they're still pretty tasty. Scooby Doo never goes out of style, and we're still happy to find these in our lunch box. Zoinks!

There are many ways to upgrade your peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but those who are really in the know know that it really starts with cutting off the crusts. That is, in fact, exactly how the idea of Uncrustables was born in the mid-1990s, but it wasn't until 2000 that this little idea went mainstream commercially, thanks to Smucker's. 

Anyone who's had one knows that there's nothing quite like an Uncrustable. In hindsight, though, it's pretty wild. A PB&J sandwich is one of the first things that many people learn to make themselves, and the idea that people bought somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 million sandwiches in 2000 alone is just mind-blowing. The early years of that decade were filled with not only happy kids — and arguably happier parents — but also with a series of lawsuits that debated whether or not anyone can patent something like a PB&J. Lawsuits still pop up every so often, and yes, Uncrustables are still available. 

In fact, they're still a wildly popular, billion-dollar-a-year business. They're even more convenient than they ever have been, given that you can pick up boxes of Uncrustables right from Amazon, as well as in countless major grocery stores and big box stores. And if you're worried about waste, there's no need: The crusts become animal feed. 

It's no secret that the Harry Potter franchise dominated the pop culture scene for years, especially around the 2001 release of the first film. Even today, no trip to Universal is complete without sampling some of the many butterbeer-inspired treats on offer, and in the late '90s and early 2000s, you couldn't swing a stick without hitting at least three people reading the book, another wearing a Potter-inspired t-shirt, five more with Potter tattoos, and at least one person who was eating Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. 

Those came out in the year 2000, and quickly gained some serious notoriety for flavors like dirt, earthworm, soap, vomit, rotten egg, and earwax. And really, that kind of sums up just how huge the franchise was. People were actually willing to eat booger-flavored Jelly Belly beans just because they slapped the "Harry Potter" logo on it and told us all to buy them.

And yes, you still can. You don't even need to go all the way to Universal — or Hogwarts — because Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans are available on Amazon. And that's kind of surprising, as author J.K. Rowling has famously faced some serious backlash for her views on gender and equality, to the point where it has caused major division between Rowling and the now-adult stars who made her even more famous. We'd say that there are actually plenty who find her association with vomit-flavored jelly beans kind of fitting.

Love Doritos? Of course you do, they're downright delicious. Doritos have come in a whole bunch of wild flavors, and somewhere along the line, someone had the brilliant idea to turn them from a flat chip into bite-sized pieces of roughly pyramid-shaped, flavorful goodness. They were actually introduced in the late 1990s, and trust us when we say that the '90s were the Wild West for food trends. There were some good — long live Bagel Bites! — some bad (Boca burgers, we're looking at you), and some ugly (that's Orbitz). Doritos 3D, however, were delicious, and when they were discontinued in 2004, it seemed like it might just be one more discontinued Doritos flavor we could pine after. 

The OG was your standard Doritos flavor, but in 2020, the company rounded out an otherwise pretty awful year by announcing it was going to bring Doritos 3D back ... albeit in a slightly different form. New 3D flavors introduced were a spicy ranch and a chili cheese nacho, and honestly, we feel like 2020 owed us at least this. 

Yes, you might have to do a little bit of searching to find these, but we did find them available at Walmart. Some people posting on Reddit report that it's a challenge to track these fan favorite chips down, so if you see them, you might want to pick them up when you can.

We'd argue that there are only a few things that are better than Oreos, and most of those things are the mouth-watering desserts you can use literally any flavor of Oreo in. Also? Cakesters, which were the almost perfect marriage between Oreo flavor and the softness of cake. They were originally only around between 2007 and 2012, but any kid who opened up their lunch box to find one of these in it, well, the day just got a whole lot better.

There are a lot of reasons that a seemingly popular food might get discontinued, and we couldn't find any real reason why Cakesters disappeared. We can, however, say that they were brought back in 2022, and today, you can order boxes of Oreo Cakesters from Amazon.

Are they the same as the ones some of us remember from the 2000s? Some people report finding them a little too heavy on the cake and light on the cream, but plenty of others claim that they're not just a brilliant walk down memory lane, but that they really are Oreos in cake form. Some reviews on Amazon even note that if you keep them in the freezer, they're even better. That's the kind of quality content we like to see on the interwebs.

There are plenty of ultra-creative ways to add flavor to yogurt, but when it comes time to talk about yogurt delivery systems, things were pretty straightforward for a long time. Until, that is, the late 1990s, when yogurt in a tube hit shelves. That, of course, was Go-Gurt, and here's a fun fact: It was originally meant to be shaped like a cone, not a tube.

And it was a pretty brilliant idea. Not only did you not need a spoon anymore, but it actually turned yogurt from a boring breakfast food into an on-the-go snack that was fun to eat. Add in fortune-telling tubes and early flavors like root beer float, and it's no wonder that in 2000, Go-Gurt took the title of one of the best-selling yogurts ever.

And yes, it's not only still around today, but there are new Go-Gurt innovations happening, too. New flavors are announced and introduced regularly, and yes, you can absolutely buy boxes of Go-Gurt on Amazon. The company regularly partners with pop culture giants — like Minecraft — for promotions, and the brand has also added Go-Gurt Dunkers to the product roster. That's a combination of dunkable graham crackers and Go-Gurt, and it doesn't matter how old you are, dunkable snacks are always fun.

Fruit snacks have been really popular for a long time, and that means that it's been long enough that there are a ton of discontinued fruit snacks that we'd love to have back. Fortunately, there's one favorite that we don't have to wish for, because it's not only still available, but it's such a big deal that Gordon Ramsay signed on to be the so-called Chief Fruit Officer in 2024. 

We're talking about Welch's Fruit Snacks, which debuted in 2001 after a few years of development. The idea was a fruit snack where the emphasis was more on the fruit, and it was a massive hit that spawned other varieties. The fruit and yogurt snacks were pretty tasty, and yes, as we said, they're still available. You can get boxes of Welch's Fruit Snacks on Amazon, and while there are a lot of different options, are they really fruit snacks if they're not Concord grape-flavored?

Here's a fun fact: If you enjoy them, you're in good company. When Ramsay signed on to a partnership with Welch's, it wasn't random. He credited Welch's Fruit Snacks as being the light treat that he'd eat around the hectic chaos of a restaurant service, and given his famous focus on health and wellness along with good food, the real-fruit angle is still a win.

It's Friday night in 2002. We're going to go see "Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones," then we're going to stop by Hot Topic, take a swing through Waldenbooks, grab some pizza at Sbarro, and then stop at the mall kiosk for some Dippin' Dots. It was billed as the Ice Cream of the Future, and boy, did we believe it. We were like astronauts, with our magic ice cream, and yes, Dippin' Dots is definitely still around.

First, a little history. Dippin' Dots was actually created in 1988, when a cryogenics specialist took a method he was developing for use in cattle feed and applied it to ice cream. There. Those are words you probably never thought you'd see together in a sentence, and neither did we. It wasn't until 2000 that Dippin' Dots was franchised, and it showed up in shopping malls and entertainment venues everywhere. 

Dippin' Dots was even on Oprah Winfrey's show back in 2004, and fast forward to 2025, and there are still around 22,000 places where you can get your ice cream of the future. There are as many flavors as ever, too, with brownie batter, strawberry cheesecake, Hawaiian crumble, and even a Cookie Monster flavor now. Does ... does this mean we're living in the future?

If you know any Xennials or Millennials, you'll know that many were probably in their late teens or early 20s in the early 2000s. You'll also know they walk the line between Gen X cynicism and Gen Z social awareness, and here's where the SpongeBob SquarePants Popsicles come in. Yes, they're delicious. Yes, the cartoon had a ton of fans, but there's more at work here to make these popular. It doesn't matter how many years pass; opening a SpongeBob Popsicle is an adventure where you know you're going to get a tasty treat, but you also might get a hilariously bizarre, Lovecraftian horror on a stick. Xennials and Millennials love that stuff.

According to the rare mention we could find, these Popsicles were released in 2002, and have gone through a few different forms over the years. They're all idealistic and have the potential to go horribly wrong, and while there's a super-recent trend where influencers try to find the perfect Popsicle, the OG generations know it's not just about SpongeBob; it's the potential for Cthulhu. 

In 2023, the SpongeBob Popsicle got a major makeover when gumball eyes were replaced with chocolate ones. Was it an objective good idea? Probably, but it was no less horror-inducing ... and that's what matters.

There is an almost surprising number of different flavors of Cheez-Its, and for anyone who loves savory snacks over sweet, these are probably a go-to. Back in the early 2000s, there was another one: Gripz. They hit the market in 2005, and not only are they still around, but Cheez-It released a new, white cheddar version of this savory treat in 2025.

Seriously, what's not to love here? There's all the flavor of Cheez-Its in super-convenient serving sizes, and early-2000s snackers knew what they were doing. Grab a pack or two, throw them on the passenger seat of your Chevy Cavalier, Toyota Corolla, Ford Focus, or your Honda Accord, and you were set. They were even arguably better than regular Cheez-Its, because they had all the flavor and there was no need to get your hands dirty: You could "drink" them right out of the package like nature intended.

Yes, you can get bulk boxes of Cheez-It Gripz on Amazon, and reviews fall into two categories. Some are offended by how small they are, but those who have been around for these crackers from the beginning know that they're a best-kept secret for savory snackers.

Cereal is fine, but if you're the type that looks forward to the milk, you're definitely not alone. Cereal milk is actually pretty great for adding to your next dessert cocktail, and if you haven't added cereal milk to your coffee, what are you doing with your life? Back in 2022, Kellogg's introduced instant cereal bowls as a way to revolutionize the cereal market, but as far as we're concerned, even that didn't top the early-2000s treat that were Froot Loop Cereal Straws.

They were exactly what they sounded like, and they were originally discontinued back in 2009. For anyone who wonders whether or not it's worthwhile to sign an online petition, here's your answer: A Change.org petition is credited with getting the Cereal Straws back on the market in 2021. Sure, it took a few years, but all good things come to those who wait. 

In this case, that meant both Froot Loops Straws and Cocoa Krispies Straws. And yes, you can currently get a 54-pack of Froot Loops Cereal Straws on Amazon, and it's clear from reviews that this move made a lot of people really, really happy. There is a footnote to this, though, and that's the common complaint that they're often broken. Sure, that's a bummer, but more say that the return of these things has brought back happy memories and a childhood sense of glee, wonder, and the kind of warm, fuzzy feeling that only comes with some serious nostalgia.