Giant Cheetos

Update: A number of people are speculating that this could be an elaborate April Fool’s prank. However, the USA Today article reporting on this is from March 31st, and the number of pictures and reviews from small, independent bloggers over the past week means that if this WAS an April Fool’s prank, Frito-Lay did one hell of a job. The Director of Public Relations for Frito-Lay North America is on Twitter, and he’s been swearing all day that it’s not a prank and the product is for real. Earlier tonight, an ad for Giant Cheetos popped up on YouTube. Check it out:

Original Post: They have arrived. But I will admit, I didn’t even know they were coming. Big thanks to @mvpitts for alerting me to the existence of this bizarre product after sharing a USA Today article covering weird new food creations such as Giant Cheetos, Pancake Puppies and Oreo Fun Stix.

For its article, USA Today spoke to Frito-Lay about the inspiration behind the idea:

“People are looking for anything to break the negativity,” says Ann Mukherjee, marketing guru at Frito-Lay, which, at one point even considered — but junked the idea of — Cheetos the size of tennis balls.

Frito-Lay hired cultural anthropologists who watched stressed workers fiddle with stuff on their desks — including stress balls. So why not Giant Cheetos, instead? “It’s a ball you can eat,” Mukherjee says.

BookofJoe also posted about them yesterday, and Taquitos provides a review:

Each piece in this bag of Cheetos was quite large, as you would expect from the Giant Cheetos name, with a tube-like shape, kind of like a marshmallow, though somewhat irregular, with rounded-off ends. Each tube was about an inch and a half in diameter about an inch and a half long.

Gigi-reviews got their hands on some last week and has described them as well:

It is shaped like a neon orange marshmallow. And unlike marshmallow it is not smooshy and sweet. It is super cheese flavored. It’s as if they took the amount of cheese flavor in a regular cheetos and upped it to 11. Actually it reminded me of an old school Planters Cheese Ball more then a Cheeto. By that I mean it’s saltier then a normal Cheeto and the cheese flavor is a little more fake, but it’s so good in that ‘it’s bad but it’s good’ way that you don’t care.

So exactly how big are these Giant Cheetos? Well, Gigi-Review provides a photo showing some scale:

That’s a big ass ball of Cheeto.  Isn’t part of the fun of Cheetos the skinnyness and crunchyness? I fear that a giant puffy cheese ball will be too similar to the puffy and light – and far inferior, cheese puffs you can get from any supermarket store brand.  I want to try one of these badly, but my health, and my wallet, can’t justify actually spending money on crap like this.  Oh, but Flamin Hot Cheetos FTW.  That is all.