Hillside Candy taps raw ingredients trend with organic line extension

Launched almost 10 years ago, GoOrganic was created to be a line of confections for a healthy lifestyle, said Hillside Candy’s director of marketing Sandy Gencarelli. All Hillside’s current candy product as well as its new launches are gluten-free, kosher certified and allergen friendly.

Starlight mints and assorted fruits​

The two new products that will be showcased at the Expo include Starlight Mints and Assorted Fruit, an assortment of mango, watermelon and strawberry flavored hard candies. All of the GoOrganic products are available in US grocery chains, including Whole Foods and Stop & Shop, and are sold for $3.29 per 3.5 ounce (100 gram) per bag.

On top of being organic certified, Hillside Candy also recently decided to make GoOrganic line non-GMO verified, according to Gencarelli. “Although it is an additional expense for manufacturers and time consuming, we felt that it was important to our consumers to become non-GMO verified,”​ she said.

Growing organic certified candy market​

Another US organic candy brand is Torie & Howard, and the CEO Torie Burke previously told ConfectioneryNews there are very few organic-certified candy brands in the US market, because it requires a lengthy process to obtain the certification.

Gencarelli believes the US organic candy market will continue to grow, and more brands and different types of confections will become available, however, innovation is needed to meet the consumer demands for candies with clean label and healthy ingredients.