It’s the land of Fruit Roll-Ups and honey.
With the price of the candy skyrocketing in Israel because of a viral video, an American couple was caught last week trying to smuggle 375 pounds of Fruit Roll-Ups stuffed in suitcases at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv.
The unidentified couple was stopped for going over the 11-pound food limit.
A video posted by Israeli news outlet Mako showed a customs official rifling through the bags as someone off-camera claims he brought the treats for his family.
A single roll-up pack costs about 50 cents at an American dollar store — but can go for up to $6 in Israel after a TikTok video showed fans how to freeze and wrap it around ice cream as a makeshift crunchy cone.
The resulting popularity explosion has made the fruity strips scarce in both the US and abroad and has spawned a black market.
Last week alone, Israeli customs officials confiscated at least 661 pounds of the candy, according to the nation’s tax authority.
Mitchell Cohen, the owner of the historic Economy Candy shop in the East Village, told The Post that a customer recently placed an order for 10,000 boxes of Fruit Roll-Ups.
“I reached out to my distributors and they said, ‘Look, dude, we haven’t seen Fruit Roll-Ups in months,'” said Cohen.
“You can’t just turn on the Fruit Roll-Up machine and crank any more out.”
He added that he saw a similar viral obsession during the pandemic when customers went crazy for Toxic Waste Slime Lickers — which look and function like a small deodorant, but instead apply a roll-on sour liquid to consumers’ tongues.
“They blew up on TikTok so much that I couldn’t keep them on the shelves,” Cohen said.
“It was nuts.”
The latest viral infatuation has also led to increased orders from other local confection creators, including a jump in sales for Joray Fruit Rolls, a Brooklyn-based company that manufactures a product similar in appearance to Fruit Roll-Ups, but calls it a healthier option that includes ingredients like real dried fruit instead of concentrates.
Ray Shalhoub, the owner of the Windsor Terrace-based family business that began in the 1950s, said he has seen about a 50% increase in sales over the past two months.
General Mills, which manufactures Fruit Roll-Ups, did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Israeli authorities would not say if the Americans were detained or if their sticky stash was simply confiscated.
But the candy craze did prompt the Israeli Ministry of Health to release a public warning Wednesday: “Here’s an idea for a much healthier roll – a cucumber roll.”
