The Real Reason Kudos Disappeared
It was like a candy bar for breakfast. Hugely popular in the 1990s, the bars were made by Mars, Incorporated — the same brand that manufacturers Twix, Milky Way, and Snickers, so yeah, they know candy (via AdAge). Kudos were chocolate-covered granola bars that you could find in the grocery aisle next to Nutrigrain and Nature's Valley. The catchy "Kudos, I'm Yours!" TV commercial portrayed Kudos as the perfect food to power up a tennis match, or fuel a Little League grand slam.
Originally available in fudge, peanut butter, and chocolate chip, Kudos went through a reinvention in May 2011 with new flavors that mixed in popular Mars candy bars, including Dove and Snickers (via Grocery.com). The new-and-improved Kudos bars had some health upgrades as well, including added calcium and 20 percent more peanuts.
But then, all of the sudden, Kudos vanished. Kudos lovers everywhere were distraught. In an open letter to Mars begging the food company to bring back this popular lunch box drop-in, Radio station 97 ZOK wistfully recalled "the perfect combo of granola bar, rice krispie treat, and candy bar that we children of the 90s were blessed with."
So what happened?
Where have all the Kudos gone?
Delish speculated that the trend of "healthy" snacks that were not, in fact, candy, was the death knell for Kudos. However, Mars never produced a formal statement explaining why they took Kudos off the market. On Facebook in 2017, though, the brand did reply to one consumer in Kudos withdrawal with a reality that wasn't sugar-coated: "Hi Alexander, thanks for reaching out and for your passion for the Kudos Bar! The product has unfortunately been discontinued — our apologies for any inconvenience!"
"Inconvenience" certainly feels like an understatement to die-hard Kudos lovers. "These were my breakfast from 7th grade to senior year of high school," posted Reddit user Swim2014. Waxing nostalgic, Reddit user Thats_Coolio wondered, "Did anybody else intentionally let the peanut butter ones melt over your fingers so you could lick that [stuff] off?" Meanwhile, Refinery 29 lists Kudos as one of the no-longer-available "Snacks That Make Us Weep."
If you're really jonesing for a Kudos, it's not that difficult to recreate the recipe using Rice Krispies cereal, chocolate candy, and karo syrup. This Peanut Butter M&M Kudos Copycat recipe from the blog Oh, Sweet Basil just requires some basic kitchen items like a saucepan and produces a Kudos-esque treat that will stay fresh for up to a week. If you can wait that long to eat them all, that is.