# How are milk bottle sweets made?

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## Summary

Milk bottles are chewy white sweets cast in bottle shaped moulds. Some recipes use condensed milk and beef gelatine; others use starch and plant protein.

## Description

Milk bottles are small, white, bottle shaped chewy sweets with a milky flavour, and a fixture of British pick and mix. They are made like other gummy sweets, but the recipes behind them vary more than you might expect.
How they are made
Cook. Glucose syrup and sugar are cooked with a setting agent, such as gelatine or starch, and the milky flavour.Mould. The mixture is poured into bottle shaped hollows, often pressed into trays of starch on a machine called a starch mogul.Set. The bottles are left to set.Finish. They are tipped out, the starch is cleaned off, and they can be glazed so they do not stick together: see how are gummy sweets shaped?
Two real recipes
Two bags of milk bottles, both sold in the UK, show how different the recipes can be. These are the ingredient lists recorded on the food database Open Food Facts in 2026:
Barratt Milk Bottles: glucose syrup, sugar, sweetened condensed milk at 17 per cent (whole milk, sugar and lactose), maize starch, beef gelatine, flavouring and salt.Morrisons Milk Bottles: glucose syrup, sugar, modified potato starch, water, maize starch, maltodextrin, hydrolysed pea protein, potato protein, sunflower oil, flavouring, glazing agents of carnauba wax and beeswax, and caramelised sugar syrup.
The first gets its milky taste from real condensed milk and its chew from beef gelatine. The second lists no milk and no gelatine: it relies on starch, and on flavouring for its milky taste. The pea and potato proteins are the kind of plant proteins that, according to the Dutch machinery maker Tanis, are added to starch based gummies so that they can be whipped full of air: see how do jelly sweets set?
What that means for diets
Milk. Milk bottles made with condensed milk contain milk, one of the 14 allergens: see milk in sweetsGelatine. Beef gelatine is not vegetarian, and it matters for some religious diets too: see beef gelatine and pork gelatineGlazes. A beeswax glaze means a sweet is not vegan, even without milk or gelatine: see what is beeswax on sweets?
Recipes change, and two sweets with the same name can be quite different, so always check the label. Our SW031 card opens up to show the full ingredients and allergen information for the milk bottles we sell.

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