Available from October, the new vegan-friendly recipe will be used across the full range of Fruit Pastilles sweets, starting with sharing bags.
The brand joins Nestlé’s expanding range of vegan products, which includes Jelly Tots, Carnation vegan condensed milk and Nescafé Gold dairy alternative lattes.
Nestlé said its technicians trialled over 30 recipes before arriving at the new formulation. Their mission was to remove the gelatine, while ensuring the sweets retained the fruity flavour and iconic chew for which they are famous.
Meg Miller, brand manager for Rowntree’s said: “We’ve had many requests from consumers over the years asking if we can make Fruit Pastilles vegetarian or vegan. We want the brand to be enjoyed by as many consumers as possible and so we are delighted to be able to introduce our new vegan friendly recipe across the full range of sweets.
“In developing the new formulation, we were very conscious of our responsibility as custodians of this much-loved brand and its long history. Through this recipe change, we’ve made the sweets slightly softer, which we know has been a market trend for a number of years. However, our priority was to preserve the fabulously fruity chew that has made Fruit Pastilles a classic for almost a century and a half.”
Fruit Pastilles, a mix of blackcurrant, lemon, strawberry, lime and orange chewy sweets, contain no artificial colours, flavours or preservatives, and were invented by brothers Henry and Joseph Rowntree, working with French confectioner August Claude Gaget, at their cocoa works in York in 1881.