Sweets Emotions: No More Peeps Until Easter 2021

Back in March—a month in which new coronavirus developments were unfolding within the food world faster than we could even process them—we wrote about the temporary halt of the Peeps production line due to coronavirus concerns. Just Born (maker of Peeps as well as Hot Tamales, Mike and Ike, and Goldenberg's Peanut Chews) shuttered its facilities for several weeks in order to sanitize its equipment and offices. All employees continued to be paid during that period, which is awesome. And that suspension of operations didn't affect the Easter supply of marshmallow chicks and bunnies, which were already on store shelves by that point—but it will now affect the supply of Halloween, Christmas, and Valentine's Day Peeps. None of those will be released this year.

Just Born tells CNN that when it reopened its plant, changes were made in the interest of employee safety that limited production of Peeps and the company's other candies. "This situation resulted in us having to make the difficult decision to forego production of our seasonal candies for Halloween, Christmas and Valentine's Day in order to focus on meeting the expected overwhelming demand for Peeps for next Easter season, as well as our everyday candies," the company said in a statement to CNN.

This is a real shame for anyone who prefers the adorable Peeps Pumpkins and Peeps Snowman shapes to the classic chicks, and for those who prefer eating giant sugar-dusted marshmallows during hot cocoa season instead of piling one more supersweet confection onto the Easter holiday, which in our humble opinion already has plenty. Plus, prior to the pandemic, Peeps was just beginning to hit its stride with quirky product innovations that might not have made it into your regular grocery rotation, but were nonetheless interesting entries in the lineup. What's more, CNN notes that Just Born is also skipping this year's seasonal releases of Mike and Ike and Hot Tamales flavors, though anyone upset by this presumably still has the Original flavors to take comfort in.