When it comes to sugary treats, people have always tried to have their cake and eat it too. Indulging in sweets without tipping into full-on gluttony has long been a tightrope act—and one we’ve never been great at. In the 1990s, that mindset fueled a wave of so-called healthy snacks: low-fat on the label, sky-high sugar inside, and very little actual nutrition to show for it.
The Kudos bar was a perfect example. If you got to pick any snack back in the day, this was a prime choice. Chocolatey, chewy, and basically candy pretending to be granola, it was a school-lunch staple and a pregame snack favorite. Even now, plenty of people are still holding out hope for a comeback.
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Why Did Kudos Bars Get Discontinued?
It’s hard to pin down one exact reason why this much-loved granola bar ended up in the snack graveyard, but like most discontinued products, it was probably a mix of factors. Kudos bars launched in 1986 under Mars, Incorporated, and originally came in flavors like chocolate chip, peanut butter, and fudge.
Marketed as a better-for-you alternative to candy bars at the checkout lane, Kudos had a total chokehold on ’90s kids. Like candy bars, each one had a full layer of chocolate running through it. They were chewy, sugary, and unapologetically chocolatey. What more could a kid want?
In May 2011, the brand tried to reinvent itself with new varieties made using Snickers, Dove, and M&M's, plus a reformulation that added more calcium and peanuts. What probably ended up being the death knell, though, was the change to a chocolate undercoating and a chocolate drizzle on top instead of the full chocolate coating.
By 2017, Kudos bars were unofficially discontinued. They didn’t get a big farewell—they just quietly vanished from store shelves, like they’d been snapped away by Thanos himself. The only real acknowledgment ever came via a response to a Facebook comment, where the company confirmed the bars were discontinued and apologized for the inconvenience. Not a full ghosting, but close enough.
Sadly, these chocolate-covered granola bars aren't available like they once were in their heyday, when you could grab a family pack at Costco. These days, your best bet is settling for close-enough stand-ins like Kroger’s chewy dipped bars, Aldi-brand granola bars, or Quaker chewy dipped bars. They won’t hit quite the same, but it’s what’s available.
Now, the healthy candy bar space is dominated by high-protein options like Built, Barebells, and RXBAR—bars that boast big protein numbers to scratch the same sweet itch, with a little less guilt attached.
Related: What Happened to Fruitopia? (And the Secret Places You Can Still Find It)
Will Kudos Bars Ever Come Back?
Some fans still hold out hope that Kudos bars will make a triumphant return—a second coming, if you will—but the odds aren’t great. That’s about as likely as SnackWell’s making a comeback or pigs flying. Still, stranger things have happened.
There is a Change.org petition floating around, but with only a couple dozen signatures, it’s probably not enough to convince the higher-ups at Mars to resurrect a fallen favorite, no matter how beloved it once was.
How to Make Copycat Kudos Bars at Home
@moribyankudos bars at hime and even better! I used to sneak two to three a day ? #recipe #nostalgia
♬ Lo-fi hip hop - NAO-KThe good news is that you don’t have to rely on memory alone for a nostalgic sugar rush. Kudos bars are surprisingly easy to recreate at home using pantry staples—and honestly, you probably don’t want to replicate every ingredient anyway.
The basics are simple: granola, milk chocolate, peanuts, almonds, and sugar. From there, you can customize things with your favorite candy bar, chocolate, or nuts.
On Instagram, one user keeps it extremely low-effort by spreading a layer of creamy peanut butter over a Nature Valley granola bar and pressing M&M’s into it. You could easily do the same with chopped candy bars or drizzle melted chocolate over the top.
Prefer making them from scratch? One TikTok creator mixes Rice Krispies cereal with oats, then cooks down brown sugar, peanut butter, unsalted butter, salt, vanilla extract, and corn syrup until thick. That mixture gets folded into the cereal, pressed into a parchment-lined 9×9 pan, and chilled until set.
Once firm, the slab is sliced into bar shapes, dipped on the bottom in melted milk or semi-sweet chocolate, and set on parchment to harden. Finish things off with mini M&M’s and a drizzle of melted chocolate using a piping bag. It sounds a little involved, but it really isn’t if you’ve got the time, patience, and a bit of creativity. And for a taste of childhood nostalgia, it's totally worth it.
Related: Here's How Much You Paid for Groceries in 2016
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