Fruit gums

Fruit gums are firm, chewy sweets flavoured with fruit. In Britain, the name is linked with Rowntree's, the York firm that launched its fruit gums in the 1890s, and other makers produce fruit gums for pick and mix.

Rowntree's Fruit Gums

Rowntree's introduced its gums in 1893, first marketed as Rowntree's Clear Gums and sold in twopenny tubes and sixpenny packets. Today there are five flavours, each a different colour: strawberry, which was originally raspberry, orange, lemon, blackcurrant and lime. The brand passed to Nestlé when it bought Rowntree's: see Joseph Rowntree, the Quaker chocolate maker

From 1958 to 1961, an advertising campaign ran with a slogan written by the copywriter Roger Musgrave, Don't Forget the Fruit Gums, Mum, with a television advert of a boy reminding his mother to buy them.

A changing recipe

The recipe has changed a good deal over the years:

• Less fruit juice. The gums contained 25% fruit juice until around 2010, when this was changed to 1% concentrated fruit juice.
• Less sugar. In 2017, Nestlé announced it would cut the sugar by 30%. Nestlé's product page now gives 46 g of sugar per 100 g.
• Vegan. In 2020, Nestlé removed the gelatine and carminic acid, a red colour made from insects, to make the gums suitable for vegans.

What is in them now

Nestlé lists glucose syrup, sugar, starch, gum arabic, malic, citric, lactic and acetic acids, 1% concentrated fruit juice from apple, blackcurrant, orange, lime, strawberry and lemon, trisodium citrate, flavourings, colours from anthocyanins, copper chlorophyllins, beta carotene and curcumin, and carnauba wax as a glazing agent. With gelatine gone, the chew now comes from starch and gum arabic: see starch jelly sweets explained

Nestlé says all the ingredients in its core Fruit Gums, Fruit Pastilles, Jelly Tots and Pick and Mix are suitable for vegans and vegetarians.

Fruit gums, wine gums and pastilles

Fruit gums have close relatives. Wine gums are similar firm sweets, which contain no wine: see do wine gums have wine in them? Rowntree's Fruit Pastilles, launched in 1881, are coated in sugar: see how are fruit pastilles made?

In our pick and mix

We sell Fruit Gums by the 100 g. Recipes differ between makers, so the card opens up to show the full ingredients and allergens for the fruit gums we actually stock.

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