Popsicles: A Buying Guide

The bougie options aren't always the best...

What is it about a popsicle that absolutely screams “SUMMER!”? I’ll eat ice cream any (and every) time of year … but frozen fruit pops? For me, they will forever be the stuff of cookouts, blazing afternoons on the Slip ’N Slide, and evenings on our front stoop.

We are, right at this very moment, entering Peak Popsicle Season. Don’t take my word for it: According to data from Instacart, spending on popsicles doubles in the run-up to the Fourth of July holiday. So, I dove deep into supermarket freezer cases to suss out which of the many fruit bar brands on the market today are worth adding to your summer grocery rotation. 

The Hunt

My ideal popsicle would have an intense, real fruit flavor and a silky texture; no additives; and just a hint of added sugar. Sadly, I could find no widely available store-bought option that met all those criteria … but two fruit pops came close.

All told, I looked at nine brands of fruit popsicles with national supermarket distribution, all of which sell products in a range of different fruit flavors. For the purposes of this buying guide, I evaluated each brand based on its strawberry fruit bar.¹ 

Why strawberry? It’s a summer classic, and, more practically, it was the most common flavor across all brands. Spot checks confirmed that the data I collected on this one flavor (such as sugar content, presence of additives, and use of real fruit) tended to apply similarly across brands’ other flavorways. 

I was pleased (and a bit surprised!) to see that none of the pops contain artificial dyes. Some rely on fruit alone for their color; most, however, augment it using natural pigments, like annatto and turmeric. Most of the popsicles that I turned up in my research include “natural flavors” and gums, the latter of which are used to create a smooth (rather than icy) texture. About half list fruit (or water, then fruit) as their first ingredient. The rest lead with sugars. 

I expected some variation in flavor between the pops, but was shocked by the range: the ones I sampled ran the gamut from having no discernable fruit flavor at all, to lollipop-like artificial fruit flavors, to ones that boasted all the depth of flavor of a fresh June strawberry. 

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