7 ms·

And for some reason that I literally can't understand, the original gold bears are almost unavailable in UK. British people seem to only like starmix(with those

And for some reason that I literally can't understand, the original gold bears are almost unavailable in UK. British people seem to only like starmix(with those foam-like gummies) and tang fastic with its sour coating. I've only been able to find regular gold bears in the halal version in the "world foods" section at some supermarkets. Like, I get that countries get their regional versions, but why isn't the classic available here???

sdze 4y ago
Maybe in UK most of the people don't eat pig (gelatin). Haribo is not vegan and contains pig substance.
- bb123 4y ago
  Why would most people in the UK not eat pig?
  - sdze 4y ago
    It was just an idea...
    - bb123 4y ago
      I know, I asked to try and understand the rationale behind it.
      - refurb 4y ago
        Rather than "most people in the UK" it could be a "what's the most universally accepted product across the globe"? There are several major products that are Kosher or Halal despite the biggest market being the West. Snapple Ice Tea is a good example of a Kosher product. The only rationale I can think of is if you are going to mass produce some food product, better to start with something you can sell everywhere, than start with a Western version and then change (or add to) your product line later.
        Xylakant 4y ago
        > There are several major products that are Kosher or Halal despite the biggest market being the West. Snapple Ice Tea is a good example of a Kosher product. There are a lot of products that are by default Kosher and Halal and just added the sticker on top for advertising. What could you add to Ice Tea to make it not kosher other than preparing it in non-kosher equipment (which is possible, but unlikely in the case of ice tea)
        refurb 4y ago
        Sure but for Snapple, it’s kosher certified. So the company went through the trouble to get it approved. I do agree that tea is probably easier to get certified, but it takes extra effort to get that status.
        Xylakant 4y ago
        It’s still not the case that Snapple started off with something kosher to grab the market share. It just happens that they had a product that is easy to certify. The effort was likely small compared to the advertising benefit.
        refurb 4y ago
        Right, but that's my point. If I were to launch a new product and I had the choice between ingredient A and ingredient B, and ingredient A meant I could get an easy kosher certificate, why not choose A?
        throwaway2037 4y ago
        I feel the same about "extra effort". When I lived in New York City, many vegetarian restaurants would go out of their way to get kosher and halal certified (by conservative clerics). The owners would prominantly display the certificate at the entrance, plus the menu would share the same information. In my view it was two things: (1) virtue signalling (fine by me), and (2) appeal to a more customers who might not "naturally" be vegetarian. I knew many Orthodox Jews at my office. If their favourite Jewish Kosher lunch/dinner place was closed, they would check for kosher veg options.
- gadders 4y ago
  Nobody in the UK would care about that, unless your Jewish/Muslim or Vegan/Vegetarian.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    About 4-5% of the UK's population are Muslims, 2% are Jews and 1.5% are Hindus which means they are forbidden to eat beef-based gelatine. The problem is that food declarations do not have to specify from which animal(s) the gelatine was sourced, and many manufacturers don't bother with halal/kosher certifications due to the extra work involved (the certifications usually have to meet strict ultra-orthodox standards, whereas many people don't care about the specifics but only about the kind of animal). As for the number of vegetarians and vegans, the UK reports 11% who live at least vegetarian or stricter per [1]. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find vegetarianism and religion correlations for the UK, but in any case it's safe to assume that anything between 11 and 19% of the UK's population are in one way or another following ethics that refuse gelatine-based products. That is not "nobody" at all. [1] https://www.food.gov.uk/sites/default/files/media/document/food-and-you-wave-5-secondary-analysis-current-food-landscape.pdf https://www.food.gov.uk/sites/default/files/media/document/f...
    - synu 4y ago
      They way I read it, they aren’t saying there are no religious people or vegans. Just that nobody cares except them.
      - gadders 4y ago
        Yes, exactly that. It is unlikely to be a concern outside of the groups I mentioned.
    - idleproc 4y ago
      That 11% figure included 'partly vegetarian'. A more useful study "puts the size of the vegan population at about 2-3% and the vegetarian population at about 5-7%" [1]. From the article, it appears that only 2% of vegans, and 3% of vegetarians surveyed did so for religious reasons. [1] https://yougov.co.uk/topics/lifestyle/articles-reports/2022/01/20/meet-britains-vegans-and-vegetarians https://yougov.co.uk/topics/lifestyle/articles-reports/2022/...
- omnicognate 4y ago
  Most British people eat pork, beef and gelatin. I mean, if you chose to eat the most British food possible for a day it might be a full English breakfast (sausages, bacon) for brunch, roast beef and yorkshire pudding for dinner and maybe a nice jelly trifle for pudding. Also Haribo bears are available everywhere. This whole thread is very odd.
  - gambiting 4y ago
    I literally can't find them in any Asda, Tesco, Sainsburys, Aldi, Lidl or Morrisons(here in North East of England). Please tell me where you live if they are available "everywhere" for you.
lozenge 4y ago
This sounds like shrinkflation? Those foam gummies take up more space with less sugar. Even if they're less liked, most people aren't going to put in any effort to source some sweets.
unfunco 4y ago
If you're trying to find them in supermarkets you'll struggle, I see them all the time in the corner shops though, where you'll also find a much better crisps selection.
dairylee 4y ago
> And for some reason that I literally can't understand, the original gold bears are almost unavailable in UK Like someone else has mentioned you're more likely to find them in corner shops and in the discount stores like Home Bargains and B&M. But in my opinion they're probably not readily available because they're just not very popular. Gummy Bears are a bit boring and bland compared to the other sweets available. Growing up I'd sometimes get a 10p mix up from the corner shop after school and there's no way I'd have wasted a penny on a gummy bear when I could have gotten a giant strawberry, a ufo, a black jack, a fruit salad, a fried egg, or best of all a foam shrimp/banana.
- Spivak 4y ago
  > Gummy Bears are a bit boring and bland compared to the other sweets available. Oh this is absolutely true, even limited to candy with gummy textures there are so many good options -- Trolli worms, Starburst gummies, Sour Patch, Nerds clusters, Mike & Ike, Sweetarts gummies. The thing these all pretty much have in common is incorporating a more sour/acidic taste to varying degrees so that is probably a turn-off for some but it's hard to argue with the result being incredibly flavorful.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
deadbunny 4y ago
They're available on Ocado, I buy them at least once a month.
s_dev 4y ago
I find that hard to believe -- Goldbears are in every second shop in Ireland. Where are we getting them from if not the UK? Jungle Mix is superior anyhow.
olyjohn 4y ago
Huh. I see them here in the US just about everywhere. I've seen them at gas stations, grocery stores, and convenience stores. I eat way too many gummy bears probably.
- gambiting 4y ago
  Yeah, but same is true almost everywhere else in Europe - I can walk into any shop, any fuel station, and buy original Gold Bears in any size. But in UK the original flavour is a rarity(like I said, I can see everyone just burying Haribo Star Mix instead)
  - d1sxeyes 4y ago
    I'm finding it harder and harder to find the originals, now they have mostly the ones with the soft centre (Budapest, Hungary).

sdze 4y ago

Maybe in UK most of the people don't eat pig (gelatin). Haribo is not vegan and contains pig substance.

bb123 4y ago
Why would most people in the UK not eat pig?
- sdze 4y ago
  It was just an idea...
  - bb123 4y ago
    I know, I asked to try and understand the rationale behind it.
    - refurb 4y ago
      Rather than "most people in the UK" it could be a "what's the most universally accepted product across the globe"? There are several major products that are Kosher or Halal despite the biggest market being the West. Snapple Ice Tea is a good example of a Kosher product. The only rationale I can think of is if you are going to mass produce some food product, better to start with something you can sell everywhere, than start with a Western version and then change (or add to) your product line later.
      - Xylakant 4y ago
        > There are several major products that are Kosher or Halal despite the biggest market being the West. Snapple Ice Tea is a good example of a Kosher product. There are a lot of products that are by default Kosher and Halal and just added the sticker on top for advertising. What could you add to Ice Tea to make it not kosher other than preparing it in non-kosher equipment (which is possible, but unlikely in the case of ice tea)
        refurb 4y ago
        Sure but for Snapple, it’s kosher certified. So the company went through the trouble to get it approved. I do agree that tea is probably easier to get certified, but it takes extra effort to get that status.
        Xylakant 4y ago
        It’s still not the case that Snapple started off with something kosher to grab the market share. It just happens that they had a product that is easy to certify. The effort was likely small compared to the advertising benefit.
        refurb 4y ago
        Right, but that's my point. If I were to launch a new product and I had the choice between ingredient A and ingredient B, and ingredient A meant I could get an easy kosher certificate, why not choose A?
        throwaway2037 4y ago
        I feel the same about "extra effort". When I lived in New York City, many vegetarian restaurants would go out of their way to get kosher and halal certified (by conservative clerics). The owners would prominantly display the certificate at the entrance, plus the menu would share the same information. In my view it was two things: (1) virtue signalling (fine by me), and (2) appeal to a more customers who might not "naturally" be vegetarian. I knew many Orthodox Jews at my office. If their favourite Jewish Kosher lunch/dinner place was closed, they would check for kosher veg options.
gadders 4y ago
Nobody in the UK would care about that, unless your Jewish/Muslim or Vegan/Vegetarian.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  About 4-5% of the UK's population are Muslims, 2% are Jews and 1.5% are Hindus which means they are forbidden to eat beef-based gelatine. The problem is that food declarations do not have to specify from which animal(s) the gelatine was sourced, and many manufacturers don't bother with halal/kosher certifications due to the extra work involved (the certifications usually have to meet strict ultra-orthodox standards, whereas many people don't care about the specifics but only about the kind of animal). As for the number of vegetarians and vegans, the UK reports 11% who live at least vegetarian or stricter per [1]. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find vegetarianism and religion correlations for the UK, but in any case it's safe to assume that anything between 11 and 19% of the UK's population are in one way or another following ethics that refuse gelatine-based products. That is not "nobody" at all. [1] https://www.food.gov.uk/sites/default/files/media/document/food-and-you-wave-5-secondary-analysis-current-food-landscape.pdf https://www.food.gov.uk/sites/default/files/media/document/f...
  - synu 4y ago
    They way I read it, they aren’t saying there are no religious people or vegans. Just that nobody cares except them.
    - gadders 4y ago
      Yes, exactly that. It is unlikely to be a concern outside of the groups I mentioned.
  - idleproc 4y ago
    That 11% figure included 'partly vegetarian'. A more useful study "puts the size of the vegan population at about 2-3% and the vegetarian population at about 5-7%" [1]. From the article, it appears that only 2% of vegans, and 3% of vegetarians surveyed did so for religious reasons. [1] https://yougov.co.uk/topics/lifestyle/articles-reports/2022/01/20/meet-britains-vegans-and-vegetarians https://yougov.co.uk/topics/lifestyle/articles-reports/2022/...
omnicognate 4y ago
Most British people eat pork, beef and gelatin. I mean, if you chose to eat the most British food possible for a day it might be a full English breakfast (sausages, bacon) for brunch, roast beef and yorkshire pudding for dinner and maybe a nice jelly trifle for pudding. Also Haribo bears are available everywhere. This whole thread is very odd.
- gambiting 4y ago
  I literally can't find them in any Asda, Tesco, Sainsburys, Aldi, Lidl or Morrisons(here in North East of England). Please tell me where you live if they are available "everywhere" for you.

lozenge 4y ago

This sounds like shrinkflation? Those foam gummies take up more space with less sugar. Even if they're less liked, most people aren't going to put in any effort to source some sweets.

unfunco 4y ago

If you're trying to find them in supermarkets you'll struggle, I see them all the time in the corner shops though, where you'll also find a much better crisps selection.

dairylee 4y ago

> And for some reason that I literally can't understand, the original gold bears are almost unavailable in UK Like someone else has mentioned you're more likely to find them in corner shops and in the discount stores like Home Bargains and B&M. But in my opinion they're probably not readily available because they're just not very popular. Gummy Bears are a bit boring and bland compared to the other sweets available. Growing up I'd sometimes get a 10p mix up from the corner shop after school and there's no way I'd have wasted a penny on a gummy bear when I could have gotten a giant strawberry, a ufo, a black jack, a fruit salad, a fried egg, or best of all a foam shrimp/banana.

Spivak 4y ago
> Gummy Bears are a bit boring and bland compared to the other sweets available. Oh this is absolutely true, even limited to candy with gummy textures there are so many good options -- Trolli worms, Starburst gummies, Sour Patch, Nerds clusters, Mike & Ike, Sweetarts gummies. The thing these all pretty much have in common is incorporating a more sour/acidic taste to varying degrees so that is probably a turn-off for some but it's hard to argue with the result being incredibly flavorful.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

deadbunny 4y ago

They're available on Ocado, I buy them at least once a month.

s_dev 4y ago

I find that hard to believe -- Goldbears are in every second shop in Ireland. Where are we getting them from if not the UK? Jungle Mix is superior anyhow.

olyjohn 4y ago

Huh. I see them here in the US just about everywhere. I've seen them at gas stations, grocery stores, and convenience stores. I eat way too many gummy bears probably.

gambiting 4y ago
Yeah, but same is true almost everywhere else in Europe - I can walk into any shop, any fuel station, and buy original Gold Bears in any size. But in UK the original flavour is a rarity(like I said, I can see everyone just burying Haribo Star Mix instead)
- d1sxeyes 4y ago
  I'm finding it harder and harder to find the originals, now they have mostly the ones with the soft centre (Budapest, Hungary).