YIKES! TikTok Trend Has Fruit Snack Company Warning Consumers

On Thursday, Congressional leaders spent their afternoon grilling an executive from TikTok:  The popular-among-teens video sharing up that has been getting a great deal of political attention of late.

TikTok has stood accused of a number of worrying actions:  From data-harvesting for the Chinese Communist Party to adjusting their outgoing algorithms to try to dumb down American culture.  There is a growing movement to ban the app, or to force the sale of TikTok to an American company and out from the CCP-adjacent umbrella of ByteDance.

And while some very serious and well-honed arguments are being made for taking action against TikTok, the sorts of things that are happening back on the app aren’t quite so formal.

The snack brand Fruit Roll-Ups warned people against a current TikTok trend of eating their sugary snacks, wrapper included. The warning dropped the same week TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew went into a hearing on Capitol Hill as lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle have raised security concerns about the app.

Fruit Roll-Ups felt the need to fact check one TikTok user named hollyberry09 who claimed that eating the plastic wrap with your Fruit Roll-Up is just fine.

“Fruit Roll-Ups Warns TikTokers Against Eating Plastic Wrap as Part of Trend as Lawmakers Debate Banning App,” the snack brand’s social media account posted.

The post in question was alarming.

@hollyberry09 Replying to @certifiedliv #frozenfruitrollup #wherestheplastic #foodtok #foodie #viralsnacks ♬ original sound – Holly

Fruit Roll-Ups was quick to respond.

@fruitrollups #stitch with @hollyberry09 legal is making me clarify that you should not attempt to eat plastic #fruitrollup ♬ original sound – Fruit Roll-Ups

If this is the sum total of the value of TikTok, then ByteDance might want to watch and make sure that the door doesn’t hit them on the way out.