Vegan Sweets: What to Look For and the Mixes to Start With

For years, being vegan at the pick and mix counter meant standing well back and watching.

The cola bottles had gelatine in them. The shiny jelly beans were glazed with beeswax. The red ones owed their colour to cochineal. You could have the bon bons. Possibly.

Not any more. Sweet makers have got very good at this, and our Vegan range now has more than 100 sweets in it: fizzy, sour, gummy, foamy, boiled, the lot. Here's how to read a label, what to watch for, and where to start.

Why aren't all sweets vegan?

Four ingredients are usually the reason:

• Gelatine. The big one. It's made from animal collagen, usually pork or beef, and it's what gives a traditional gummy its bounce.
• Beeswax (E901) and shellac (E904). Glazes that make sweets shine and stop them sticking together. One comes from bees, the other from the lac insect.
• Carmine (E120). A red colour made from cochineal insects. You'll also see it listed as cochineal or carminic acid.
• Milk. In chocolate, toffee, fudge and some chews.

So what do vegan sweets use instead?

Plants, mostly. Pectin from fruit, starches from maize and potato, and in a lot of Swedish foam sweets, potato protein. They set a sweet just as well as gelatine does, and the chew is different in a good way: a cleaner bite, a softer finish, and fruit flavour that comes through sooner.

Plenty of sweets were vegan all along and never made a fuss about it. Sherbet lemons, for one. The clue was always on the label.

Where to start: the vegan mixes we'd hand you first

We make more than a dozen vegan mixes. These are the ones to begin with.

• If you like it sour: Sour Shockwave. Melon slices, sour apples, fizzy dummies and tongue painters. All sharp, no gelatine.
• If you miss the old sweet shop: Vintage Vault. Sherbet lemons, fruit jellies, orange and lemons and barley sugar. The classics, made vegan.
• If you want cola and cherry: Cherry Cola Remix. Cola bottles, cola skulls, twin cherries and cherry bon bons. Two flavours, one bag.
• If it has to be blue: Ocean Eyes. Blue raspberry, bubblegum, mermaids and tongue painters. Your tongue will not recover for an hour.
• If you want a party: Gummy Glow Up. Meerkats, peach rings, Dracula teeth and lollies, with no gelatine anywhere.
• If you want to go Swedish: Swede and Sour. Sharp Swedish sour fruit gummies, from blue raspberry to sour apple.

You can see them all in Vegan Mixes.

The singles worth knowing

• Giant Strawberries. Big, soft, and twice the size of a normal one.
• Fizzy Twin Cherries. A pair of chewy red cherries in a fizzy sugar coat.
• Bubblegum Mermaids. Pink and blue jelly mermaids. Tail, hair and all.
• Cola Bottles. The original, and none the worse for being vegan.
• Bubs Cola Skulls. The soft Swedish foam skull that everyone has been looking for.

Vegan sweets that crunch

Freeze dried sweets have gone vegan too. The Green Corner is our vegan freeze dried mix: eleven sweets made with vegan ingredients, light, airy and loud. The rest are in Vegan Freeze Dried.

Vegan, vegetarian, gelatine free: what's the difference?

• Gelatine free means no gelatine. It might still contain beeswax, carmine or milk.
• Vegetarian means no gelatine or carmine, though milk and beeswax are fine.
• Vegan means no animal ingredients at all.

Each product page says what a sweet is suitable for, alongside its full ingredients and allergens. We keep a halal range too.

A gift for a vegan friend

The Vegan Vault is twenty vegan sweets in our biggest box: fizzy bottles, sour slices, Bubs skulls, rings and tongue painters, all without gelatine. One box, no awkward questions.

One last thing

Recipes change from time to time, so the product page is always the place to check. It lists the ingredients and allergens for every sweet, and our allergens and dietary page has the rest.

Shop vegan sweets