Americans Caught Smuggling Comical Amount Of Fruit Roll-Ups Into Israel After TikTok Trend Created A Shortage

Fruit Roll-Ups have been a mainstay in the American candy aisle since they debuted in 1983. But a recent TikTok trend has caused a global surge in interest.

The latest Fruit Roll-Ups TikTok trend involves filling the rolls with ice cream and the trend has been going strong for months but recently took off in Israel leading to a shortage.

For context, this is the TikTok trend that’s gone viral:

The entrepreneurial spirit of Americans sees a shortage and recognizes it as a business opportunity. But you can’t just smuggle goods for sale across international borders without alerting the authorities who want their taxes…

A story published on TODAY.com shows a video claiming ‘350 pounds’ of Fruit Roll-Ups were seized from two Americans smuggling them into Israel.

That video, via Twitter, appears to be combining the weight of ’10 different postal shipments’ of the candy that was also seized.

Amy Spiro, who tweeted that video above, later joked “I wish there was video of them trying to convince the customs officer that it was for personal use only.”

The Israeli publication Mako was first to report that two Americans had been stopped with carry-ons full of the candy.

Two carry-on bags full of candy clearly does not add up to 350 pounds. But the second tweet with a report from Israel’s Ynetnews adds more context:

That translates to “The Tax Authority: 157 kg of rollups smuggled in 10 different postal shipments were seized.”

157 kg is roughly the equivalent of 346 pounds. That is a comical amount of Fruit Roll-Ups.

A single one weighs 0.5 ounces. A box of 72 roll-ups weighs 2.5 pounds according to Amazon.

So let’s say 346 pounds is roughly equivalent to 138 boxes. There are 72 pieces per box so that is 9936 total Fruit Roll-Ups. Like I said, just a comical amount.