> 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.

> 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.

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.

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.

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)

I'm finding it harder and harder to find the originals, now they have mostly the ones with the soft centre (Budapest, Hungary).

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Why would most people in the UK not eat pig?

It was just an idea...

I know, I asked to try and understand the rationale behind it.

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.

> 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)

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.

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.

This is a good point too. Kosher and Halal have an appeal beyond just the religious. The standards for those certifications also points to a certain quality you might not otherwise get.

Nice point: I would find it hard to believe that any cleric would certify Kosher / Halal for a dirty, low quality, hole-in-the wall.

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.

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?

Nobody in the UK would care about that, unless your Jewish/Muslim or Vegan/Vegetarian.

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/f...

> 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.

That doesn't even come close to being a safe assumption; it's wildly overoptimistic.

Kind of like claiming that, since Buddhists are forbidden to kill insects, and almost everyone in Thailand is Buddhist, killing insects is rare in Thailand.

We already know that most vegetarians are happy to eat meat. Compare https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/78/3/626S/4690004 , finding that two out of three self-described vegetarians had eaten meat within the past one day. They are even less likely to be worried about incidental animal products in candy.

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/...

They way I read it, they aren’t saying there are no religious people or vegans. Just that nobody cares except them.

Yes, exactly that. It is unlikely to be a concern outside of the groups I mentioned.