Once upon a time, a Halloween haul meant a fun-size chocolate bar, a toffee apple and, from the neighbour with the fancy porch skeletons, a fistful of jelly worms. In 2026, the big food brands have clearly decided that’s not scary enough. This year’s seasonal shelves are full of snacks that change colour, glow in the dark, and in one case, fizz in your mouth.
We’ve been busy at Ugly Food making our own disgustingly delicious Halloween recipes, but we have to tip our witch’s hat to the professionals. Here are this year’s weirdest shop-bought Halloween treats, ranked from “mildly spooky” to “somebody call an exorcist”.
5. Tropical Smoothie Cafe’s Fanta Phantom Smoothie
Let’s ease in gently. Tropical Smoothie Cafe’s first Halloween smoothie blends Fanta Orange-flavoured syrup with mango, banana, nonfat yogurt and cinnamon, then adds purple vanilla-flavoured popping boba, per Sporked.
Orange soda flavour, yogurt and purple boba that pop like tiny ghost eggs. It’s less a smoothie and more a science fair project you can drink, but nothing in that cup is genuinely frightening. Fear level: 1/5.
4. Cold Stone’s Boo Batter Ice Cream Taco
Things get darker from here. Literally. Boo Batter, Cold Stone Creamery’s jet-black Halloween ice cream, is back for another October, and so is its party trick: a taco-shaped shell of orange waffle, dunked in chocolate and showered with Halloween sprinkles (Sporked has the details).
Is it weird? A bit. Black ice cream in a taco-shaped cone looks like something a goth would eat at a beach party. Take off the costume, though, and it’s the same trusty ice cream and waffle double act. Fear level: 2/5.
3. Cheetos Sweet Phantom Heat Puffs
Halfway down the list, and halfway to numb: Cheetos Sweet Phantom Heat.
According to PepsiCo’s announcement, these puffs open with cinnamon sugar (yes, from the same people who gave the world permanently orange fingertips) and then build into a mix of heat, tingling, numbing and a subtle fizz. The effect is inspired by compounds found in Sichuan pepper, the spice that makes your lips buzz in a good mapo tofu.
The best details are in PepsiCo’s own FAQ:
- The sensations get stronger the more you eat.
- The effect can last from several minutes up to 30 minutes after your last bite.
- The red colour comes from red radish juice and paprika extract.
PepsiCo even cites a 2026 study suggesting that stress and fear can increase people’s desire for spicy food. So the logic is: watch a horror film, get scared, eat a snack that makes your mouth go numb. Honestly? Brilliant. They only land mid-table because, to the naked eye, they’re just Cheetos with a slight blush. Fear level: 3/5.
2. Cup Noodles Vampire Noodles
Nissin has launched limited-edition Vampire Noodles: bright, blood-red noodles in a “Hot Garlic Chicken” broth, reports SavorNation. The red colour comes from vegetable colouring, and the flavour is mostly garlic and chilli.
We appreciate the joke: a vampire-themed dinner that’s loaded with the one thing vampires can’t stand. It’s either a clever bit of branding or a very passive-aggressive gift for your Dracula-loving friend. Cooking time is four minutes, which is exactly how long it takes to regret eating noodles that look like that. Fear level: 4/5.
1. Hidden Valley Spooky Ranch
And our winner, because nothing else on this list looks quite so wrong: Hidden Valley’s black ranch. We like to imagine the entire product brief for this one was four words long: “Ranch, but make it goth.”
Spooky Ranch is Hidden Valley’s first-ever seasonal dressing. It’s the same Original Ranch flavour, but pitch-black, coloured with fruit juice and cocoa powder and made with no artificial flavours, according to SavorNation. Despite the cocoa, it doesn’t taste like chocolate. The 12-ounce bottle also glows in the dark, making it the first salad dressing that could plausibly guide a plane in to land. It’s a Walmart exclusive at $3.97 while supplies last.
Put a bowl of it on the Halloween buffet without a label and every guest will assume it’s the olive tapenade. Then they’ll taste it. Ranch, wearing a disguise, at a costume party: honestly, we couldn’t have scripted it better. Fear level: 5/5.
Honourable mention: mac and cheese soda
SavorNation also mentions that Kraft has released a mac-and-cheese soda. It’s a Canada-only cream soda made with Toronto’s Solly’s Craft Soda, and not technically a Halloween product, but we’d argue anything that turns macaroni cheese into a fizzy drink is scary all year round.
Why are snacks getting so weird?
Partly because weird gets shared. A black dressing or a fizzing Cheeto is made to be filmed, posted and argued about, and brands know it. As Sporked put it, “the whole holiday is about being a little scared of something and doing it anyway”.
Here at Ugly Food, we’ve spent years covering foods that are weird by nature, from maggot cheese to cooked cow brain. So it’s oddly comforting to see the snack giants finally catching up. Black ranch is cute. Come back when you’ve got a glow-in-the-dark durian.
Happy Halloween, and if you spot a party guest pulling a puzzled, tingly face, we know exactly which bowl they’ve been raiding.
Image note: the featured image in this article was generated with artificial intelligence.
