What happened to Ben & Jerry's kills an ice cream flavor? It gets a burial in the company's "Flavor Graveyard."
NPR's Morning Edition has the story: LinkCustomers and employees alike feel pangs of sadness when their favorite flavors either fail to catch on or can't recover from hard times. For instance, a particular ingredient might become too costly, or a kitchen process might be too complicated to continue.
"You feel bad when the good ones just don't make it anymore," Greenwood says.
A prime example is Rainforest Crunch, Greenwood says. He recites an elegiac poem dedicated to the flavor:
"With aching heart and heavy sigh, we bid Rainforest Crunch goodbye; that nutty brittle from exotic places got sticky in between our braces. 1989-1996. It was a really, really good flavor."
Like most cemeteries, the Flavor Graveyard attracts its share of mourners and other visitors.
"It's not uncommon," Greenwood says. "You walk up to the graveyard here, and there'll be fans that are up here putting flowers next to a headstone, or down on one knee, kind of paying their respects."