Assorted gummy candies in fish, bear, diamond and ring shapes scattered across pale marble, some glossy, some rolled in sour sugar, with a small dish of citric sanding sugar at the edge

Gummy candy: The Complete Guide

September 29, 2026

Somewhere between the jelly, the pastille and the caramel sits the gummy: sugar, glucose syrup and a gelling agent, cooked into a syrup, cast into a bed of starch and dried until it chews. It is the candy most of us ate first and think about least. The bear that started it came out of a kitchen in Bonn a century ago, the method that shapes it has stayed essentially the same ever since, and the difference between a gummy that springs back and one that melts away is decided by a single ingredient chosen before the sugar ever boils. This guide covers where the gummy came from, how it is made, why gelatin, pectin and starch chew so differently, the styles country by country, how to read a bag and how to store what is left. The Swedish candy guide and the pâte de fruit guide cover the two traditions that border this one.

What a gummy is

The recipe is short. Sugar and glucose syrup give sweetness and body. Water dissolves them. A gelling agent sets the cooled syrup into something that resists the teeth. An acid, usually citric, gives the fruit flavors their brightness. Flavor and color finish the job. Five roles, and only one of them is an argument: the gelling agent. Everything a gummy does in the mouth, the snap, the spring, the length of the chew, whether it dissolves on its own or has to be worn down, follows from whether the maker reached for gelatin, pectin or starch. That choice is the spine of this guide, and it is printed on every ingredient list for anyone who knows to look for it.

The bear from Bonn

Hans Riegel, a confectioner in Bonn, registered his company in 1920 and named it after himself and his city: HAns RIegel BOnn, Haribo. Two years later he cast a fruit gum in the shape of a slim dancing bear, the Tanzbär, modeled on the trained bears that still performed at fairs and markets in those years. Over the following decades the dancing bear shortened and firmed into the Goldbear, and the shape has been imitated by candy makers ever since.

The bear is the founding story, not the whole map. Germany built the Fruchtgummi tradition around gelatin: clear, springy, precise. Scandinavia folded gummies into pick and mix culture, where they share the bins with licorice and foam; Sweden's lördagsgodis, the Saturday candy ritual of concentrating the week's sweets into a single day, grew out of postwar dental health campaigns, and that whole world has its own page in the Swedish candy guide. Britain chews wine gums, dense and long. France set its fruit into pectin instead and called the result pâte de fruit, the gummy's formally dressed cousin. Each style begins with the same short recipe and diverges at the gelling agent.

Gelatin, pectin, starch: the texture argument

Gelatin is collagen, the structural protein of skin and connective tissue, extracted mostly from pork skin and beef hide; fish and beef-only gelatins exist for kosher and halal production. Its gel strength is graded on the Bloom scale, and the property that matters most in candy is this: gelatin gels melt just below body temperature. A gelatin gummy does something no other confection quite does. It resists, it springs back, and then it quietly liquefies and disappears. That clean vanishing act is the German bear, and it is why gelatin still dominates the category despite being the one major gelling agent that is not plant-based.

Pectin is a plant fiber concentrated in citrus peel and apple pomace, and the high-methoxyl pectin used in confectionery sets in the presence of sugar and acid. A pectin gummy does not melt in the mouth; it gives a tender, short bite that breaks down quickly and releases flavor fast, which is why pectin is the agent of choice when the fruit itself is the point. It is what sets a pâte de fruit, and it is plant-derived, so it anchors vegan gummies.

Starch, usually corn or potato, cooks into a dense, slightly cloudy gel with the longest chew of the three. A starch gummy has to be worked; it dissolves slowly and keeps its shape in the mouth the longest. It is a backbone of Scandinavian pick and mix and of gelatin-free sweets, often blended with pectin or gelatin to tune the bite between springy and stout.

	Gelatin	Pectin	Starch
Comes from	Collagen in pork skin or beef hide; fish and beef-only versions for kosher and halal	Citrus peel and apple pomace	Corn or potato
The bite	Springy, elastic, snaps back	Tender, short, clean break	Dense, stout, long chew
In the mouth	Melts just below body temperature and disappears	Breaks down fast, releases flavor early	Dissolves slowly, must be worn down
The look	Clear, glassy	Clear to softly translucent	Cloudier, more opaque
Dietary status	Animal-derived, not vegetarian	Plant-based	Plant-based

How gummies are made: the mogul

Most of the world's gummies are born in a machine called a mogul. Shallow wooden or plastic trays are filled with dried food-grade starch, and a board of plaster or resin dies presses thousands of identical impressions into the powder: bears, fish, rings, diamonds. A depositor then pipes hot candy syrup into each impression, the trays stack up in warm conditioning rooms, and for the next day or two the starch does the real work, pulling moisture out of the candy and firming it from a syrup into a chew. Then the trays are tipped, the candies tumble free, the starch is sieved and dried and sent around again, and the naked gummies get their finish: a fine polish of vegetable oil and carnauba or beeswax for gloss, or a tumble through sugar and acid for a sour sand. That finishing fork in the road, shine or sand, is the last big stylistic decision a maker takes. A different finishing tradition entirely, building candy shells layer by layer in rotating drums, is the subject of the panning piece.

The styles, country by country

Germany is the gelatin heartland: clear, taut, precisely flavored fruit gums in bears, bottles and fruit shapes, built for the snap and the vanish. Scandinavia is the pick and mix world, where gummies share space with foam, chocolate and the licorice covered in the licorice guide, and where sour sanding and unusual flavors, elderflower, pear, salt, run far ahead of the rest of the world. Starch and pectin do more of the work there. BUBS, the Swedish maker profiled in the BUBS Godis producer guide and founded in 1992, makes its entire range without gelatin; the Swedish-style sour fish from BonBon, like the sour peach fish and the sweet wild strawberry fish, show how far the form has traveled from the bear. Britain chews wine gums, the densest of the family, a long stout chew in muted fruit flavors and, despite the name, made without wine. France took the pectin road to pâte de fruit, where the fruit content climbs and the candy moves from the bag to the box. The United States scaled the category up: worms, rings, peach shapes, softer and sweeter-set than the German original, built for the movie theater rather than the counter jar.

How to read a bag

Three lines on the label predict almost everything. First, the gelling agent, because it is the texture in advance: gelatin for spring and melt, pectin for a tender short bite, starch for a long chew, blends for something between. Second, the fruit: a bag that lists fruit juice or puree with a percentage is making a different promise than one that lists flavoring alone, and the percentage tells how much of the promise is kept. Third, the acids: citric reads bright and immediate, malic stretches sourness out longer, tartaric adds a sharp, bitter edge, and a sour candy worth the name usually names more than one.

Storage and shelf life

Sugar confectionery carries too little free water to spoil in any ordinary sense; a gummy does not go off, it goes stale. Gummies are at their best within roughly six months to a year, and the enemies are air and the wrong humidity. Dry air, and Denver's certainly qualifies, pulls moisture out and turns a supple gummy into a firm one; a humid cupboard does the opposite, softening the candy, dissolving sour sanding into a syrupy film and gluing the bag into a single archaeological mass. The fix for both is the same: an airtight jar or a well-closed bag, in a cool cupboard away from sunlight, and a policy of buying at the pace of eating. A gummy that has firmed up with age is still perfectly good; it has simply migrated from the German end of the texture spectrum toward the British one.

What to do with them

A gummy needs less staging than almost anything else in the sweets drawer: a bowl on the table settles most evenings. They earn a place on a dessert board next to dark chocolate and fresh fruit, where the sour sanded pieces play the palate-sharpening role that cornichons play on a charcuterie board, and a jar of mixed shapes is the fastest route to a pick and mix evening at home, a subject the Swedish candy guide takes seriously. For the kitchen-inclined, the gummy candy recipe to learn first is the shortest path to understanding, by hand, everything the mogul does at scale.

Short answers to the rest

Are gummies vegetarian? Not when gelatin sets them; pectin and starch gummies are plant-based, and the ingredient list settles it in one line. Is there kosher or halal gelatin? Yes, made from fish or from beef processed to those standards, and certified bags say so. Do gummies expire? They stale rather than spoil; texture fades long before safety does. Why did the bag turn into one lump? Heat or humidity dissolved the surfaces and they re-set as a unit; cool, dry and airtight prevents it. Why is the sour coating wet? The sanded acids take on water in humid air; a sealed jar keeps the sand dry and sharp.

The sour peach fish (shop sour peach fish), the Moomin sour gummies (shop Moomin sour gummies) and the BUBS tutti frutti sour diamonds (shop BUBS tutti frutti sour diamonds) are a fair tour of the Scandinavian end of the map. The shop is at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, and products ship nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com. The bear started this; the bins are where it ended up.