# Refreshers

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## Summary

Refreshers are two British sweets: fizzy tablets first sold by Trebor in 1935, now a Barratt sweet, and Swizzels' chewy, sherbet filled New Refreshers.

## Description

In Britain, two quite different sweets share the name Refreshers. One is a fizzy compressed tablet sweet. The other is a flat, chewy sweet with sherbet hidden inside. Here is how to tell them apart.
The tablet Refreshers
The original Refreshers are small, fizzy compressed tablet sweets. According to the history of Trebor, the London sweet maker, Refreshers were launched in 1935. Trebor was bought by Cadbury in 1989 and became part of Trebor Bassett. In 2008 Tangerine Confectionery, now Valeo Foods, bought a group of sweet brands from Cadbury, and today the tablet Refreshers are sold under the Barratt brand, alongside the Dip Dab, the Sherbet Fountain, Black Jacks and Fruit Salad. Barratt's own brand history dates the release of Barratt Refreshers to the 1940s. The Barratt range also includes Refreshers Softies.
The name has a long history at Barratt: in the 1880s the firm was already making a sweet called Refresher Sticks.
The chewy Refreshers
The other Refreshers are made by Swizzels, the New Mills firm behind Love Hearts, Parma Violets and Drumsticks. They are flat, chewy sweets with sherbet in the middle, in lemon and strawberry flavours, and they are among Swizzels' most popular products. To avoid trademark confusion with Barratt's compressed tablet Refreshers, Swizzels officially calls them New Refreshers. See Drumstick lollies.
Why they fizz
Fizzy sweets like these typically get their fizz the same way as sherbet: a food acid and a base, such as bicarbonate of soda, which react when they meet the moisture in your mouth and give off carbon dioxide. For more on sherbet, see sherbet dips.
Other fizzy tablets
Swizzels also makes Fizzers, rolled tablet sweets that fizz and dissolve when put into fizzy drinks, and Parma Violets, which are disc shaped tablets like Fizzers but lilac, with a perfumed taste and no fizz: see Parma Violets.

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