Regal Crown Sour Candy (History, Marketing & Pictures)
History has brought us a significant number of varieties of candy and sweet snacks. Some of these snacks are still easily found. In contrast, other candies, such as Regal Crown Sour Candy, have switched hands several times, making them much more difficult to find. Learn more about the history of this iconic candy today!
Originally From England
Regal Crown Sour Candy sounds English and Olde World because it is. It was initially made in England and imported to the United States of America in the 1960s. Although members of the younger generations may believe that sour treats and candies are something utterly unique to this time, this is just not the case. This candy has been around for decades, allowing people to enjoy the delicious sour taste of many different fruity flavors.
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Regal Crown Sour Candy and The Reed’s Candy Company
Reed’s is the company that owns the rights to Regal Crown Sour Candy. Reed’s has been a company long before Regal Crown Sour Candy came into existence. They were founded in Chicago, Illinois, in 1893. By the early 1900s, they were America’s largest butterscotch candy manufacturer. This may be partially due to their manufacturing process.
They used copper kettles to boil the ingredients for their hard candy. They used premium ingredients such as farm-fresh butter and pure cane sugar. Propelled by their great success with butterscotch candies, they expanded their candy line.
The new Candy product line now included flavors such as wintergreen, spearmint, peppermint cinnamon, licorice, root beer, butter Rum, and teaberry hard candies.
Originally Murray Allen and Trebor Basset formed a partnership with Regal Crown Sour Candy. Trevor Basset was the premier manufacturer of the amazing Regal Crown Sour Candy in the UK. In contrast, Murray Allen, part of Reed’s Candy Company, became the exclusive distributor of this wonderful candy in the United States of America.
Regal Crown Sour Candy became incredibly popular in the USA. In fact, The National Confectioners Association stated that this Regal Crown Sour Candy was the 6th best-selling candy in all classes in America.
Regal Crown Sour Candy was only ranked behind popular and iconic candy bars such as Almond Joy, Snickers, Baby Ruth, and the Milky Way, which is still very popular today.
Reed’s Candy Company also became popular in the 1980s and 90s for producing the candy bar, Bar None. The BarNone Candy Bar was released in 1987 after spending 15 million dollars on testing and development. It was released on a national scale to a very receptive audience.
This candy bar quickly became a fan favorite. This candy bar was a delicious mix of chocolate wafers, chocolate cream, and milk chocolate. Their popular ad campaign deemed this candy bar as a solution to “Tame the Chocolate Beasty.”
A Novel Idea For Their Time
One of the reasons that this candy was so popular was because it was really a novelty for the time period they were released in America. At the time, other popular hard candy included items such as fruit-flavored hard candy, root beer, cinnamon, mint, and lifesavers. These all had their place, sure, but none of them had any kick to them.
The Regal Crown Sour Candy offered something new and different. Everything was unique about them – their flavors, their packaging, and what they looked like. It added a certain sense of fun and newness to a stale candy market. This was especially true for the youth of the generation. Typically, hard candy is designed and marketed to older adults. Still, finally, there was a hard candy that appealed to the younger generations.
In the 1960s, when this candy blazed onto the scene, it offered a different taste. These candies were much more sour than anything else being offered at the time. Sure, they were not like the sour candies of today, such as sour patch kids, but they were not tame like Lemonhead Candy or Life Savers Candy either. They struck a new chord in the market, fulfilling a need that most candy manufacturers did not even realize existed.
They were sold in large tubes, and each piece of candy was wrapped separately in wax paper, ensuring they would not stick together, ruining the overall experience. The wax paper made it look even better to the youth, creating a flying saucer shape for each individually wrapped piece of candy.
Each piece of candy was also about twice as big as a lifesaver candy, making them appear to be a much better value as well! Finally, they came in several different delicious sour flavors. They were available in Sour Lemon, Sour Grape, Sour Cherry, and Sour Orange. Over time other flavors were also released, such as sour apple, sour raspberry, and cool mints.
Changing Times
When looking into the history of any great company, you will find something alarming. Most companies change hands over time. When changing hands is not always a bad thing, acquisitions and mergers can bring about the end of beloved products, flavors, and offerings. Unfortunately, this is what has happened with this delicious piece of candy history.
Although it is possible to still find these candies today, Regal Crown Sour Candy has been a part of multiple acquisitions. During this time period, the candy has disappeared from the shelves of local and international stores for months to years at a time.
If you look online today, it is possible to find this item, but only in small stores or because we have access to the internet to order this treat to be shipped from anywhere in the world. However, you will have difficulty finding this candy in the stores today.
You can still find this candy due to vintage candy companies bringing it back due to popular demand.
Iconic Candy And Regal Crown Sour Candy
Iconic Candy is a company that will bring back and sells candies that they deem to be iconic and that have left the market too soon! Thankfully, they have done this for Regal Crown Sour Candy. Unfortunately, they have not released every flavor of Regal Crown Sour Candy. However, you do have the opportunity to buy the 4 most popular flavors.
They offer flavors of sour cherry, sour lemon, sour apple, and sour grape. They sell these flavors in a box of 24 rolls, and each roll contains 7 candies. So, you will get 168 pieces of your favorite sour candy per purchase. This is perfect for people who really love and miss this candy, to buy to give away in gift bags or stocking stuffers, or to give as a present to someone who grew up with this candy – it is the perfect nostalgia gift, especially for milestone birthdays or even retirement parties.
Iconic Candy’s Other Offerings
If you are all about finding other candy that is no longer on the market, this company also offers some other great choices for purchase!
If you enjoyed some of Reed’s Candy Companies other creations, you are in luck. Iconic Candy is also selling four of Reed’s original hard candy rolls. The flavors they are selling are Reed’s Butterscotch, Reed’s Root Beer, Reed’s Cinnamon, and Reed’s Peppermint. Just like the Regal Crown Sour Candy selections, these are available in a 24-pack with 7 pieces in each sleeve.
Iconic Candy has also re-released the Bar None candy bar. You can purchase this in a box of 24 individually wrapped, full-size candy bars package.
Finally, they are also selling Creme Savers – both Strawberries & Creme and Orange & Creme. You can purchase these in a 6.25-ounce bag, a 3-ounce bag, an individual roll with 12 pieces, or a box of 24 rolls with 12 pieces per roll (288 pieces total).
Logo
Ingredients
All of the candy has the following ingredients: sugar, glucose, natural flavor, and natural color.
- Sour Lemon also has lemon juice from concentrate, citric acid, natural lemon oil, and the natural color comes from beta carotene.
- Sour Apple also has malic acid, and the natural color comes from pumpkin, apple, and spirulina extracts.
- Sour grape also has malic acid, and the natural color comes from violet carrot extract.
- Sour Cherry also has cherry juice from concentrate, citric acid, artificial flavor, and the natural color comes from anthocyanin.
One piece of any one of these flavors contains 15 calories.
Nutrition
| Serving Size | 2 pieces (8g) | % Daily Value |
| Amount Per Serving | ||
| Calories | 30 | 3% |
| Total Carbs | 7g | |
| Total Sugars | 5g |
- * The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a serving of food contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for a general nutrition advice.
Pictures
Regal Crown Sour Candy Inspiring A New Generation Of Candy Manufactures
One of the wonderful things about every product from the past is that they help inspire future products. This is undoubtedly true when discussing Regal Crown Sour Candy. As previously mentioned, this candy was a novel idea at the time as there was no actual sour candy on the market in the 1960s. However, that has changed so much in the last 6+ decades, and you can think of this leader in the sour candy game for the advancements in candy offerings worldwide.
If Regal Crown Sour Candy never existed, would we have the sour candy collection we do today?
My name is Brianna and I love writing on all topics. Candy history fascinates me and I am passionate about sharing my love of this topic with everyone else!
Please leave a review or any memories of this snack in the comments below. Thank you!
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I loved Regal Crown sour orange and sour lemon as a kid. Pleasntly surprised to see that the lemon are still around, and now I’m craving the orange.
I worked in a restaurant back in the early 70s in wichita falls, texas. The restaurants front counter had the regal cherry and lemon sours for purchase, the first time I tried them I was hooked, just about every week I bought a roll of both, by far the best sour hard candy I have ever tasted. This restaurant was the only place in town that sold the regal candy, then suddenly it was no longer available. I looked everywhere to find this candy to no avail. Im convinced if this candy were readily available to C-stores across the country it could capture the hard sour candy market in sales once the product gained recognition.