The History of the Gummy Bear
—Christina
Listen here: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/hwts-257--62188404
In movie theaters (and video rental stores, if you’re like me and old enough to remember those) across the world, there’s one candy that is sure to be found: gummy bears. These sweet and chewy treats are, surprisingly, just over a century old. The company that invented them, Haribo, is still one of the largest producers of gummy candy worldwide.
Haribo began in 1920, with owner Hans Riegel working out of his home in Bonn, Germany. The company’s name is a combination of his and the city’s, Ha-Ri-Bo. He and his wife, Gertrud, started with hard candies, which they sold at local fairs and other events and delivered to order via Gertrud’s bicycle. After two years of good, but not great, business, they decided to try making a soft candy, which they molded into the shape of dancing bears. They were immediately popular. Soft candies like these were not new: Turkish Delight had existed for centuries and, more recently, wine gums, Jujubes, and Chuckles candies were popular in Britain and the United States. It seems there was just something about those little bears that made the candy all the better.
By the 1930s, the company employed four hundred people and sold their candy across Germany. However, the Great Depression and World War II took their toll. The candy remained popular, but the needed ingredients became harder to come by. Also, Hans and Gertrud’s sons, Hans Jr. and Paul, were absent from the company for most of the war, as they were first in the German army and then in an American POW camp. Then Hans senior died in March 1945. Gertrud ran the company for a little while after her husband’s death, but by the end of the war they had only thirty employees and were producing very little candy.
The company reinvented itself postwar, with the sons running it. They were soon even more successful than before the war. They made a slight design change on the bears, shortening their limbs, to make the familiar shape we see to this day. They called these new candies “Goldbären” or “Gold Bears.” The Goldbears were trademarked for Haribo in Germany in 1967.
After the closure of the Berlin Wall in 1961, gummy bears became a very sought-after item in East Germany. They also started to gain popularity in the US, as servicemen and -women sent them home as gifts to family and friends. Many American children got their first taste of gummy bears in German-language classes in the 1960s and 1970s, as an example of authentic German food.
By this time, other companies were making gummy candies, Jelly Belly in particular was cornering the US market, prompting Haribo to open up offices in the US in 1982. Haribo doesn’t own the gummy bear concept, their specific design is trademarked, but other companies can make gummy bears without infringing on it. However, according to a 2012 decision in a lawsuit between them and the Lindt Chocolate company, Haribo does get the credit for inventing the gummy bear.