Convenience chain 7-Eleven is sucking up new profits from an edible straw being sold to drink its popular Slurpee beverages.
The candy straw sells for 49 cents and is a limp hollow tube much like licorice. But when it’s dipped into the icy $1.50 Slurpee, the thing stiffens into a useable straw for slurping up the drink.
The company said the edible straws are outselling all other non-chocolate candies at 7-Eleven, the nation’s largest convenience chain.
“We’ve created useable and useful candy,” said Dana Manley, a 7-Eleven spokesperson.
The company spent two years trying to find ways to boost revenue of Slurpees, its biggest-selling product.
Slurpees, a fizzy slush concoction of flavored drinks, outsell the chain’s second-biggest food seller, hot dogs, by a margin of about 145 million drinks a year to 100 million hot dogs.
Most buyers of Slurpees also purchase the new novelty straws, which come in two flavors, sour strawberry and blue raspberry. Free conventional plastic straws will continue to be given out.
Customers spend more than $210 million on Slurpees, and the additional 49-cent straws are expected to boost Slurpee-related revenue by about one-third.
The chain’s 5,800 U.S. stores also sell Slurpee liquid-filled bubblegum, Slurpee lip balm and Slurpee frozen ice pops.