The Summer Of The 90s Is Back—Because We Miss It

Forbes

6 days ago

Why do 90s flavors still hit so hard today? For adults navigating compound stress, these snacks ... More offer a powerful return to simplicity, a tangible connection to summers before adulthood's weight.
Sometimes, memory arrives not as a thought but as an instinct. A flavor. A gesture repeated so many times it becomes embedded in the body. I think of those summers—hot, restless, and too long in the best way—and I remember pulling the golden straw from the back of a Capri Sun pouch, jabbing it just right so it didn't collapse in on itself. If you froze it, you bought yourself a few extra minutes of cold. If you didn't, you drank it quickly before the heat turned it flat. Either way, that first sip always hit the same: sweet, metallic, perfect.
You didn't think much about it then. You were a kid, probably told to go outside and not come back in. The AC was for grown-ups. The backyard was your season.
That's what taste memory gives us—not just flavor but atmosphere. The texture of a moment. And it's part of why Instacart's newest campaign, which brings back 1999 prices on snacks like Kool-Aid, Capri Sun, and Bagel Bites, doesn't feel like just another brand ploy. It's a nod to something deeper, a recognition of what summer used to mean for those of us who came of age in a different kind of world, whether as Gen Xers navigating their independent teens or Elder Millennials like myself savoring our childhood summers.
According to a recent Harris Poll commissioned by the brand, 71% of Americans say they often think back to their childhood summers. That number jumps to 79% among those of us who were kids in the '90s. But even without the numbers, you can feel it: this collective ache for something unstructured, a little sticky, and completely ours.
Taste Memory: More Than Just a Snack, It's a Feeling
Beyond just flavor, 90s snacks like popsicles and Capri Sun activate powerful taste memory, ... More transporting us back to the freedom and simplicity of childhood summers. Discover how this emotional connection is more than just a brand ploy.
When I think about that decade, I don't just remember the snacks. I remember the freedom that surrounded them. I rode my yellow banana seat bike up and down our long gravel driveway until the sky changed color. I peeled corn with my mom, on the steps of the front porch, never as fast as her. So many days of swimming in the pool. Those were the kinds of days that didn't ask anything of you except to exist inside them. No performance, no pressure, only presence. It wasn't about pretending things were perfect, but more about the particular ease of not knowing yet how heavy things could get.
For many of us, adulthood has been a string of compound stress: 9/11, the 2008 recession, a pandemic, and now a seemingly endless loop of economic uncertainty and burnout. The life we were told to expect—some version of linear success and upward mobility—never quite unfolded the way we thought it might.
For Gen Xers hitting their stride and crossing into early adulthood to Elder Millennials deeply immersed in childhood freedom, those summers were formative. My older sister, Jodi, born in 1975, and my younger brothers Philip and Tim (born in 1987 and 1989) each will have a different stack of taste memories and what a 90s summer was to them than I, but that underlying sense of boundless time was still there for us. So we return, however we can. Sometimes through food, or through smell or sound. But often, through the repetition of what made us feel safe, or seen, or simply unburdened. And that's where these snacks come in—not as food trendsetters, but as emotional connection.
The Texture of Then: Freedom in Familiar Flavors
Remember the exact feeling of those summer days? Explore how the taste memory of iconic 90s treats ... More creates a profound emotional connection, offering a tangible link to the unburdened summers of our youth. It's about remembering a feeling, not just a snack.
Taste memory isn't nostalgia for nostalgia's sake. It's a form of recall that bypasses language. You don't think about it, you feel it. A Capri Sun doesn't just taste like juice. It tastes like the day you brought it to the city pool, the soccer field, or the cracked steps outside your cousin's apartment. It tastes like being sweaty and loud and free in a way adulthood rarely permits.
The snacks highlighted in this campaign—Hot Pockets, Fruity Pebbles, Lunchables—are not aspirational. They're accessible. And maybe that's what makes them stick. They don't demand effort. They just arrive unchanged, offering a moment that feels remarkably familiar in a world that often doesn't.
It's not the ingredients we're chasing, It's the rhythm they once belonged to.
Why 90s Flavors Still Hold a Potent Pull
In a world that rarely leaves us room to just be, reaching for simplicity through 90s flavors offers ... More a powerful reminder of unburdened joy. It's about finding a way to visit the version of ourselves who knew how to play.
Now, many Gen X and Millennials who lived those summers are raising kids of our own, trying—often imperfectly—to hand down that same sense of unstructured magic. But the world they're growing up in is faster, tighter, and less forgiving. Summer doesn't pause for working parents. Time off doesn't feel like time away. And even when the intention is there—to offer our kids the kind of open-ended summers we remember—there are economic, emotional, and structural realities that make it hard to pull off.
According to the same Harris Poll, 84% of parents with minor children say they're more focused on reducing their kids' screen time in the summer than at any other point in the year. That isn't nostalgia talking. That's a desire for presence. A hunger for the kinds of days when imagination and sunlight were enough.
But imagination doesn't always fit into modern schedules. And so we reach for what's within reach. Marshmallows, Otter Pops, or discounted mac & cheese. Not because we're chasing flavor but because we're chasing feeling.
While time travel may not be possible, there are still ways to visit the version of ourselves who knew how to play.
Reaching for Simplicity: Rebuilding a Summer We Can't Replicate
So yes, Instacart is running a nostalgic promotion. But what they're really tapping into is the quiet grief that adulthood often carries—the longing for days that moved more slowly, for joy that didn't feel like a task. We're not just buying the snack. We're buying the pause it promises. We're looking for a way to slip back into ourselves, even if it's only for the length of a freezer pop.
These foods can't bring back the past. But they can create a moment that feels like a truce. A soft place in the day. A reminder that we once knew how to feel full without being busy.
And in a world that rarely leaves us room to just be, that reminder is worth holding onto.