Ferrara Candy CEO: Black Forest gummies to seize on US organic candy surge

03-Dec-2015 - Last updated on 04-Dec-2015 at 16:32 GMT

Ferrara Candy expects organic non-chocolate confectionery will enter mainstream in US

Ferrara Candy Company’s Black Forest brand has launched its first USDA-certified organic gummies, which are currently available at Kroger, and will be rolling out to major US retailers such as Walmart, Target, CVS and Dollar Tree in January.

Black Forest organic gummies are mainly targeted at Millennials and multicultural groups.

The new SKU will be 30% more expensive than conventional Black Forest gummies. Most of their organic ingredients are globally sourced, such as the tapioca extracted from sweet potatoes in South America.

Organic is a trending market

Even though there are fruit chews and gummies on the market that contain organic ingredients, there isn’t a major brand that offers USDA-certified organic confections, Ferrara CEO Todd Siwak told ConfectioneryNews.

He said organic was becoming mainstream in sugar confectionery.

“We project the Organic non-chocolate confection segment to achieve a 5-10% share (in the $375m - $750m range) of the overall non-chocolate industry (currently $7.5 BN) over the next 7-10 years," he said.

Unchanged flavours

“The new organic gummies do not contain any artificial flavours and are made with colors from natural sources, like carrots, turmeric and red beets. They do not contain processed or refined acids or sugars,” said Siwak. “Instead, we used ingredients like organic lemon juice and organic cane sugar.”

After months of testing, Siwak said the company discovered a combination of organic starches (tapioca, potato) agar and a small amount of gelatin could create the texture consumers know and love, while still complying with the USDA Organic seal standards.

“They don’t make a trade-off with flavors,” Siwak said.