Jujyfruits (History, Marketing & Commercials)

If gum drops and other kinds of fruit snacks and treats are your favorites, then you probably love Jujyfruits. This is one of the most classic fruity jelly candies out there, and many people know about this delightful gummy candy. Gum drops are not as pretty to look at, and you might find that the fun shapes make the experience of eating them much more special than just consuming plain gum drops.

Jujyfruits have been around for a long time, and they were first produced in 1920. This makes this classic sweet one of the longest-running candies in this category in the US. The Ferrara Candy company has made it possible for these kinds of classic candies to continue to exist without major alterations to their branding, packaging, or recipe. For those who love classic candies, this kind of preservation effort is a welcome blessing.

History

As mentioned above, this candy has been on the market since 1920. This is a gumdrop-like treat that is made by the Heide Candy Company. This is a subsidiary of Ferrara Candy Company which makes a lot of the classic candies that have not changed hardly at all in many generations. Most people’s grandparents will remember this candy clearly, and enjoying it with their grandkids will offer the exact same experience as they remember from their youth.

The Heide Company began making candy in 1869. In the 1920s, Henry Heidi also made jujubes, which are probably more iconic even than Jujyfruits today. However, in the beginning, Jujyfruits were the flagship of his company, and they were much more popular than the more classic gum drop style Jujubes candy. 

The disconnect between the flavors of the candies and their shapes has always added an element of fun to eating these little candies. You have no idea what the fruity item you are putting in your mouth will taste like, which can make each little treat a surprise. This is only a downside if you really don’t like a specific candy flavor, and this means that you cannot avoid that flavor reliably.

The flavors that are included in boxes of this candy are lemon, lime, cherry, orange, and licorice. This is a lot like the flavors of other jelly candies that distributor Farley & Sathers makes. You can expect a similar taste experience if you have tried out Chuckles or some of the other fruity snacks that this brand makes.

Jujyfruits have always been a staple in many different movie theaters across the US. This is still the case in most places, and you can almost always count on this candy being sold at your local theater. The small boxes are ideal for this kind of snacking, and there is something really nostalgic about sitting down to enjoy popcorn and sweets of this style.

This candy brand is readily recognizable due to the many different shapes that are used for the candies. The shapes that are included are actually an asparagus bundle, a banana, a grape bundle, a pea pod, a pineapple, a raspberry, and a tomato. Most people do not realize that some of the shapes are actually intended to be vegetables. This seems odd when you look at the name of the candy and the flavors. At least there are no asparagus or pea-pod-flavored candies in the box!

Up until 1999, the green candies were mint flavored. Hershey was the parent company at the time, but they made the change to remove this mint flavoring when a survey showed that this was most people’s least favorite flavor. Mint is not really popular in fruit-based candy packs and probably was never all that common to this kind of sweet, even at the beginning of this candy’s life. There are people who are crushed that the mint and licorice combination is no longer possible with this candy.

Today, even though the Heide Candy Company no longer makes the product, the banana is stamped with HEIDE to advertise the original maker. Other than this change, the boxes and all the other product features have hardly changed since the 1920s. The simple product with its cute bubble logo and images on each box is really appealing and clearly speaks to a simple time.

Jujyfruits in Popular Culture

During the 1970s, Jujyfruits were promoted by a campaign where customers could mail in five dollars and a token that they took from a Jujyfruits box to get a brass buckle and a leather belt in return. This was an era where box tops and other proof of purchase could be used to receive prizes of various kinds. They might vary from coloring books to toys to things like the aforementioned belt buckle. Kids loved these kinds of items and were willing to beg and plead to buy lots of the specific product in order to try and earn the award in question.

Jujyfruits enjoyed a sudden burst of interest in the 90s when Seinfeld featured them in an episode where Elaine went to see her boyfriend in the hospital. The candy was actually central to the story of the episode, and Jujyfruits were why he ended up breaking up with her. There are few candies that have been made to be such a huge focus of a TV episode, and this helped refresh interest in the brand years after it had landed on shelves for the first time.

Many other people also remember that they would pick up boxes of Jujyfruits to help them to lose their teeth so that the tooth fairy would come to visit them. This is a really common story told by those who grew up in the 60s and 70s, which likely attests to the chewy nature of this little candy snack!

A lot of people will tell you that the taste of this candy is not really what they like. The shape of the candy is still really unusual, and a lot of people like to eat them just because the shapes are really fun. There are other candies that fall into this category as well, but Jujyfruits stand out from the crowd in the gum drop arena mostly due to their shape and not the taste experience that they offer. Some people also enjoy grabbing a box of this little candy treat just to giggle at the vegetable shapes that were thrown in with the fruits right from the start.

The texture of this little treat is a lot better than what is reported by most people with regard to Jujubes. Jujubes taste better, and you can predict their flavor based on their color, but they tend to get hard and difficult to chew pretty fast. Jujyfruits are still really chewy, but they are not as prone to get really hard and difficult to eat. 

Livery

This candy comes in a bright yellow box with the name of the product swirling across the front in a bendy line. The box states that the candy is “Chewy!” and “Fruity!” There are also some hand-drawn images of the shapes of the candies that are in the box. The older boxes from the 50s through the 70s actually showed jelly candies behind the logo and were much less cartoon-like than the current box.

The present box is clearly a nod to the early days of the life of this product, which is common for the Ferrara Candy Company. The boxes are still shaped in the traditional theater-box style, which is flat and narrow on one dimension while being rectangular on the other. This always makes for a tough time getting the candies out of the bottom of the box, but that is half of the nostalgia of eating this kind of treat. 

Honestly, the product would probably stay fresh a lot longer in a plastic pouch, but the charm would be lost for most people. Something about the candies going slightly stale in the boxes is still rather charming as well and reminds many of us of our childhood and visits to the movie theater. You were often pleasantly surprised if the box of Jujyfruits that you had been given wasn’t ever so slightly stale compared to the usual nature of this candy after it had been on the shelf for a bit.

Logo

Ingredients

From the Ferrara candy store site: 

• Corn syrup
• Sugar
• Modified and unmodified cornstarch
• Natural and artificial flavors
• White mineral oil
• Carnauba wax
• Caramel color
• Artificial colors (Yellow 6, Blue 1, Yellow 5 and Red 40)

The company discloses that the candies are made on shared equipment with eggs and soy-based products. There are also artificial flavors included in the ingredients.

Nutrition

Serving Size:	11 pieces (29g)	% Daily Value*
Amount Per Serving
Calories	100
Total Fat	0g	0%
Sodium	10mg	0%
Total Carbohydrates	25g	8%
Sugars	17g
Includes Added Sugars	17g	34%
Protein	0g
Iron	0mg	0%

• The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a serving of food contributes to a daily diet. 2000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.

Pictures

Ads and Videos:

A taste review:

The famous Seinfeld episode: