I think we’ve all used one as a straw in our lifetime, but why are they hollow?
By making it hollow the manufacturers use less plastic to produce a rigid item with the same diameter as a solid twizzler. It’s cheaper.
SWAG: The hollow center allows air to pass inside. That lets the freshly-extruded product cool, dry, and harden more evenly, reducing its susceptibility to cracking. Plus, yes, it lets consumers think they’re getting more for their money.
Hmm, there must be an online petition demanding greater honesty in the processed sugar / petrochemical products industry, mustn’t there?
So kids can hold them up and look through them, poke them up their noses and make snorting noises to the delight of their friends, fill their mouths with water and fire hose it through them, and pretty much just enjoy the heck out of the things.
There is much thought that goes into the ‘playability’ of some candies because kids are going to consume most of it. Like the Twizzler texture, ranging from both smoothness to those ridges, was researched and the scent, sharpness of taste and even the tube. They could have made them thinner without the hollow center, and longer but kids have great imaginations and appreciation for the pleasantly different, so they made them as they are.
The kids can drink milk through them, crimp the end and try to ‘explode’ the tubes, and even use them to blow little piles of loose sand about or ant nests. Small candies can be poked up them and eaten at the same time for a taste sensation and they can be used to blow bubbles with bubble mix in a pinch.
How many Twizzlers will be used in place of the accompanying straws with that new bubble goop toy that’s on TV? It’s nontoxic.
How about a disposable spit ball shooter? You eat the evidence. A handy tube to use to spray your little sister with water from the bathroom sink when she isn’t looking, or even big sister if the kid wants to take that risk.
Little flavored logs to build play log cabins with for your plastic 200 for a dollar pioneers.
Think like a kid and you’ll probably see why the makers settled on that shape.
Have you ever sat at a bar and wrapped the twizzler around your finger, chewed on the end, bent it in half, thrown it at someone, stuck it in your pocket? Now think about what would happen if you were screwing around with a solid piece of plastic. Also think about the UPS charges of sending a box of hollow twizzlers against a box of solid ones. Add all of this to the other answers and there is no reason they shouldn’t be hollow.[list][list][list][list][list][list][list]It’s a no brainer[list]
ARRGH!!!
I’m so sorry!! I misread and thought you were talking about the kids candy called ‘Twizzlers!’
SorrySorrySorrySorry!!
I will now leave with embarrassment and hope not to hit the door jam on the way out of this thread!
MAXIMUMSTRENT1, don’t let it bother you too much, I didn’t realize the OP wasn’t talking about the candy (although I was a little confused by kniz’s response) until you made your anguished apology and I re-read the earlier posts.
I mean, he capitalized it, right? Everyone knows a “twizzler” is a stirring stick, but a “Twizzler” is a licorice-style candy. And yeah, I’ve used Twizzlers as straws.
Anyway, I liked your response.
–sublight.
What the heck is a Twizzler other than a kind of candy? 
I was fooled till (and somewhat confused), until I read Sublight’s response … but those are swizzle* sticks! (At least as I’ve always heard them…)
Odd… I still don’t see any reason to suppose that the OP was talking about anything other than the pseudo-cherry, pseudo-licorish extruded sugar product. KV, would you care to stop back in and clarify?
Licorice… the hole in the middle…spiral ridges… mmmmmmmmmmmmm… You don’t need to be a kid to come up with fun ways to use licorice
I’ll just shut up now.
It’s supposed to look like a solid twisted rope of taffy. That’s why it has the twists. The real ones, in the old days and at some “retro” candy stands, is made of a lot of fine strands rolled together like string cheese.
The candy strands “rolled together” are still available. I think they are called PullApart or something similar. They are available in different flavors such as Watermelon.
Oops, I suppose you could use a hollow Twizzler to shoot swizzle sticks at someone. 