Sweet History - Gummy Bears

This bear’s story began in 1920 when an entrepreneur and confectioner, Hans Riegel Sr., began making sweets and other candy products from his small home in Bonn Germany. In 1920, Riegel and his wife started their own company, HARIBO, made using the first two letters of his first and last names and the first two letters of his hometown of Bonn.

Hans Riegel Sr. was the main confectioner tasked with making the sweet and sugary candy while his wife would ride her bike through the town delivering and selling them to the local community.

Little did the Riegels know what started off as a struggling business would soon become a booming industry when Hans Riegel Sr. developed a bear shaped gummy candy known as Gummibär, or the gummy bear.

This candy was monumental as it combined sugar, natural gum or gelatin with fruit flavors; something that was never done before. This mixture of ingredients made the fruity chewy candy an instant favourite to both children and adults. While gummy candies such as Turkish delight (made with starch) or the Japanese rice candy (made with rice) have been around before 1920, it was Riegel's invention of the gelatin-based gummy that made the gummy bear candy so popular.

By the 1930’s, Hans Riegel Sr.’s business had moved from his home to a factory with 160 workers. This number kept growing every year and today the family-owned company has over 7,000 employees worldwide and produces over 100 million gummy bears a day.

Source: The History of the Gummy Bear – How It All Came to Be - (landofthegummies.com)