Haribo is well-established as a leader in the confectionery space with its gummies that come in a wide range of flavours and shapes from the regular gummy bears to gummy worms, stars and even Smurfs.
Its traditional gummy bears remain a firm favourite with consumers of all ages, but according to the firm’s Marketing Director Travel Retail Elisa Fontana, a new sour trend is blooming within the industry especially amongst younger consumers.
“Our research and development clearly indicates that many consumers are looking for confectionery with more sour profiles now,” she told FoodNavigator-Asia.
“Sour flavours were once a more specialty market need in a region like APAC where sweet profiles are more popular, but recently our sour products have become the top seller in quite a few places.
“This is of course not so obvious in our children consumers who prefer the regular fruity gummies, but as soon as there is a transition to the teenage or young adult stage, sour comes to the fore more and more.
“We believe this is being driven by an excitement factor as sourness does give an extra kick to the tastebuds, and also tends to be a much more refreshing flavour than plain sweetness.”
Haribo has already launched several relevant sour products to test the APAC market such as its Extended Sour Pack containing both regular Haribo gummies as well as its sour chewy candy brand Maoam.
“Maoam is popular in Europe but is not that well-known in other markets, and realised that the rise of this sour trend means a perfect opportunity to bring it into markets like Asia in a bigger way,” she added.
“This mix has done really well in Asia in places like Singapore, and the option to have both sweet and sour with a single purchase is clearly resonating well with consumers.
“There is also a travel exclusive product called the Giant Roulette which is a roll of circular gummies, and for this, we decided to add on a sour flavour as well compared to the regular cola and fruit flavours.
“In APAC, it is really very important to remember that we need to provide a variety of flavours, colours and shapes in order to stay relevant and appealing, and being in this gummies line is good for this as there is high versatility in the possible innovations.
“When it comes to the retailing and marketing, this variety comes into play as well because we now know that multipack and variety packs are the way to go as consumers really want that choice and options even in that one single purchase.”
Other major gummy trends
Haribo has also opted to tap into the vegetarian market by developing gummies that use plant-based gelatin.
“This change has enabled us to also gain access to the vegan and vegetarian market which is growing rapidly, and still give them that chewiness in the gummies,” Fontana said.
“We are still investigating this market segment, so currently have a few products which have this vegetarian option such as Smurfs and liquorice.
“Similarly we have also made efforts to reach Muslim markets by making some halal ranges that use beef instead of pork gelatin – for these, there are halal versions of popular items like Goldbears and Starmix.”
