Whilst most vegans accept that cross-contamination happens and that manufacturers avoid it where possible, strict vegans and people with severe food allergies may look to avoid any food that has been made in the same environment as ingredients like milk. They had to almost close [down] the production, so they started really from scratch after the war,” says Bahlmann. Vegetarian Haribo is labelled as vegetarian, but no Haribo sweets are labelled as vegan. This is because there is a risk of cross-contamination within the factories. Haribo may contain traces of animal ingredients, including milk. In the U.S., Haribo Goldbears come in five flavors: strawberry, raspberry, pineapple, lemon and orange. The keys to Haribo’s success include its consistency and the quality of its candy and product marketing. “They’ve really been able to maintain that position in the marketplace,” says Kimmerle.

The following table shows which Haribo sweets are vegan and vegetarian in the UK. Please note that ingredients may vary by country. Haribo sweets In the 102 years since its founding, Haribo has attracted its fair share of criticism. At the turn of the millennium, the company declined to join Remembrance, Responsibility and the Future, a foundation established to compensate individuals—including civilians, prisoners of war and concentration camp inmates— forced to work for German companies during World War II. In a 2000 statement to German newspaper Tagesspiegel, Haribo refuted claims that it had relied on forced labor under the Nazi regime, adding, “There is no doubt about the suffering that existed but that cannot be righted now.” After the highs of the 1930s, World War II brought Haribo’s success to an abrupt halt. Riegel’s sons, Paul and Hans Riegel Jr., fought on the German side but were captured and held in American prisoner-of-war camps; Riegel himself died in 1945 at age 52, leaving his wife, Gertrud, in charge of company operations. The couple’s sons assumed leadership of Haribo the following year, with Paul overseeing production and Hans Jr. managing marketing and sales. The bear character is something cute and loved by children,” says Bahlmann. “... The idea was not to [make] sweets without a certain shape.” Instead, Riegel wanted to give his candy a face and a personality.

Before you go!

Lauren Triffler, head of corporate communications for Haribo of America, says the investigation found no evidence of modern slavery being practiced by the company’s wax suppliers. Still, the company decided to switch suppliers and eventually discontinued its use of carnauba wax, replacing the ingredient with beeswax. Haribo also became a founding member of the Initiative for Responsible Carnauba. Join Papa Smurf, Smurfette, and the rest of the gang on a deliciously Smurfy adventure in every bite of these French Haribo gummy sweets. My feeling is that the gummy’s true predecessor is jelly or jam, as a way to preserve fruit cooked with pectin, and sometimes starches,” says Kimmerle. “[L]ater on, Japanese rice candies [made] the appeal of jellies portable. Gummies became a way to have a bite of a fruit jelly” on the go. Another point of strength is Haribo’s continued expansion and ownership by the Riegel family, now in its third generation of candy-making. (Paul died in 2009, while Hans Jr. died in 2013, leaving nephew Hans-Guido in charge of the company.) “They have a tidal wave of competition there,” says Benjamin. “They’ve been able to overcome a lot.” Today Haribo is available in more than 100 countries and having celebrated 100 years in 2020, the German third-generation family business continues to grow worldwide. They’ve come a long way from the company started by Hans Riegel in a small kitchen, producing gummy bears.

To find out which vegetarian Haribo are also suitable for vegans, the general rule is that if the sweets are shiny, they are glazed with beeswax. If they are covered in sugar, then they are vegan. Though Riegel was the first to create gummies shaped like bears, the history of these gelatin-based sweets actually predates his invention. According to Beth Kimmerle, the author of four books on the American confectionery industry, gummy bears descend from precursors such as the gumdrop, Turkish Delight and wine gum (a non-alcoholic treat originating in the United Kingdom).

Brand

According to Bahlmann, an archival investigation conducted by Haribo found no evidence of the company using forced labor during the war.

The Riegel brothers transformed their father’s company into a candy superpower, expanding its product line and upping the number of employees from just 30 after the war to about 1,000 in 1950. As Haribo continued to grow in the 1950s and ’60s, executives capitalized on new marketing tools, including television. “The brand was one of the first in Germany to do advertisements on television,” says Bahlmann, “so that made [Haribo] and the product really popular.” Confectionery was not part of the industry that was considered important for the German government at that time,” he says. “These people [mainly had to] work in coal mines and in other industries that were considered critical for the country.”Suggested read: Is food that ‘may contain milk’ vegan? Which Haribo sweets are vegan and vegetarian? We know the stories of today [of] Apple [starting] in a garage, and at that time [Haribo] was a little bit like that,” says Christian Bahlmann, Haribo’s senior vice president of corporate communications. “[Riegel had] the will to do something different, to do something on his own, and to start with very few opportunities ... and very [little] money.” Despite its popularity in Europe, Haribo only arrived in the U.S. in 1982, when the company’s first American office opened amid stiff competition. The Herman Goelitz Candy Company, now known as Jelly Belly, had manufactured the first gummy bears in America in 1981. As Kimmerle notes, Goelitz already made jelly beans—starch-molded, pectin-based fruity candy—but “wanted to emulate fruit-flavored gummy bears” enjoyed across the Atlantic. That same year, Trolli, another German company, released the first gummy worms. Susan Benjamin, a candy historian, author and the owner of True Treats Historic Candy in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, notes that these earlier candies had “already set” the formula later finetuned by Riegel. His innovation was, in part, “the shape of the bear, [which was] very comforting and sweet.” This year, Haribo is marking the centenary of its flagship gummy bears with limited edition releases, including single-flavor bags and blue raspberry–flavored party hats, as well as a contest giveaway that will send four winners on a weeklong vacation to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.