Food and drink’s most outrageous japes for April Fools’ Day 2026

It’s 1st April. And it’s time to reveal our favourite April Fools’ Day japes.

Heaven knows, with so much news out there to cry about, we all need a laugh.  But this year’s April Fools’ Day isn’t just a bit of light-hearted relief. It also tells us much about the market in 2026.

It reflects the fact that budgets are stretched as multiple brands clubbed their creative efforts together to boost the visibility of their efforts and share audiences.

Others have opted to bring their brands into the beauty and wellness spaces, driven by the trend of nutricosmetics, and no doubt the much higher margins offered by the beauty industry.

Meanwhile, there’s matcha, a craze that, through its combination of umame-based pompousness and elaborate instagrammable (tea) ceremony, feels unmatched in its ability to be sent up.

The only shock is that we’re yet to see any cottage cheese April foolishness. Perhaps they’re all terrifyingly real.

Wingstop x Pizza Pilgrims

Let’s start as weird as we mean to go on. Hopping on the co-branding trend, Pizza Pilgrims and Wingstop announced not just a pizza that replaces tomato sauce with Wingstop’s ranch dressing, but a campaign for UNESCO to grant ranch sauce protected status as a piece of “intangible cultural heritage”. You know, like Neopolitan pizza has. That’s surely a step up from your bog-standard PGI.

Florette

Florette’s salad cream/face cream hybrid is exactly the kind of diversification we like to see from brands. Cucumber is already a staple of the skincare world and a nice rocket salad is exactly the kind of fresh and dewy look consumers crave of a puffy morning. So why not blend it up into a paste?

Warburtons x OnlyCurls

From the face into the hair, Warburtons teamed up with haircare brand OnlyCurls to make your mum’s promises come true: eating your crusts will give you curly hair. Or was it a hairy chest? Either way, the resulting product dubbed Crust & Curl promises curly hair wherever it sprouts.

Fearne & Rosie

From olive jam to broccoli jam, it seems the creative brains behind Fearne & Rosie were out of office over April Fools’ Day in previous years. No more. These Dairylea Dunkers-adjacent toast soldiers with a jammy dip would go down a treat with kids on a road trip and their beleagured parents alike. Its subversively clever because it feels, well, possible. 

Rise Re:Gen Flour

The oldies are always goodies. This oldie is aliens, and guess what? The extra terrestrials prefer sustainably farmed wheat fields as the canvas for their crop circles in 2026. Of course they do. 

Asda

Asda has unveiled trolleys with seats for adults as well as children in a bid to tackle what it calls “co-shopping chaos”, loosely defined as the search for bored partners, distracted teens and unhelpful shopping sidekicks who’ve wandered off during the weekly shop. Complete with drink, snack and phone holders, and with a recline function, we’re not altogether convinced this is a problem that couldn’t be solved by cracking a window and leaving them in the car.

Desi Daru

Just when we thought all the great April Fools’ ideas had been done, Desi Daru announced this butter chicken vodka. The brand’s vodkas are inspired by India, and what’s more Indian to the great British public than their favourite takeaway dish in a cocktail?

Slim Chickens

A tap spewing sauce? Maybe not the most original, but fans of the brand will love to see it. Hopping into that bath will be scalding though, maybe not in temperature but certainly in Scovilles. Stay away unless the cold tap is ready to gush Cravendale.

Ladbaby

The duo behind Ladbaby really has made 1,000 bottles of each of these flavours available in celebration of the big day. That’s breakfast tea-flavoured mayo and coffee latte-flavoured mayo. If we didn’t already live in a polarised society, we’re now inviting the famously tribal tea or coffee drinkers to take sides in the ketchup vs mayo debate.

Dole

Dole’s April Fools’ Day offer has progressed from pineapple and ham chunks in a tin in 2024 to a full tinned Hawaiian pizza this year. It’s quite a feat of reinvention for ultimately the same concept. Pineapple on pizza. Controversial, we know. Any dating app survivor will tell you that the conversation has been done to death.

Babybel x Monty Bojangles

Co-branding really is having a moment this April Fools’. Two marketing budgets are better than one, as the saying goes. And these two have teamed up for a fake chocolate-covered cheese disc. Looks pretty high end.

Rascals

A onesie made from nappies but for adults? An intriguing proposition from nappy brand Rascals. It promises to protect new parents from poonamis, the showers often associated with changing baby boys and milky dribble. Ideal for saving on heating bills while on statutory maternity pay too.

Terry’s Chocolate

Smash phone in case of emergency! Terry’s unveiled a phone case holding a chocolate orange segment for chocoholic iPhone users. Let’s hope an overheating phone doesn’t warrant a chocolate fix.

Heinz x PerfectTed

Right on trend in being both co-branded and a matcha launch. Have we reached peak matcha? Check out this take in yesterday’s Daily Bread.

Dr Will’s x Gü

These two teamed up for a chocolate pud and spicy sriracha combo. Because sweet and spicy is a classic combo.

Idahoan

What do ice cream van drivers do in the winter? This could be the answer to their winter employment woes: mashed potato scoops topped with gravy sauce and a banger instead of a Flake. A rival to a pie at any chilly football match, surely.

Bol

Runners need energy gels, and what’s wrong with these veg-packed ones? Surely, the market is crying out for something that doesn’t taste quite so orange.

McCain

In the shoulder seasons, the ice cream vans could combine ice cream and potatoes with McCain’s idea, which replaces Mr Whippy with Mr Chippy.

Della Vite

Cara Delevigne’s prosecco brand is responsible for any damage done to its own reputation in reporting that it has been shut down by champagne bosses. Luckily, the brand says it will be distributing copies of The Vines newspaper reporting its demise along with its remaining stock on London’s Strand today. 

The Gym Kitchen

While Gym Kitchen’s official April fool is a high-protein moisturiser, more timely is its tongue-in-cheek Instagram post on 31 March expressing its solidarity with Kit Kat just days after the Nestlé brand confirmed some 12 tonnes of stock had been nicked from a lorry while journeying across the continent between Poland and Italy. In the next slide, it announced a Kit Kat flavoured yoghurt.

Mash Direct

Mash Direct has no truck with those leaning into wellness trends while forgetting their 5 a day. It says it wanted to highlight credibility issues within the wellness space with the faux launch of a trio of seemingly health-boosting juices and smoothies.

Jus Rol

Who doesn’t want their skin described as buttery? Flaky, perhaps less so. You can certainly expect at least one of the aforementioned side effects from Jus Rol’s sheet face mask, which promises less puffy skin.

Divine

And finally Divine unveiled a chocolate bar. That’s very nearly it. No insane flavour combos, it’s simply infused with good vibes. Let’s see the ASA challenge that claim.