Rowntree's Fruit Gums


Rowntree's Fruit Gums are circular sweets formerly made by Rowntree's, who were later acquired by Nestlé. There are five flavours, each of a different colour: strawberry, orange, lemon, blackcurrant and lime.
The sweets were introduced in 1893, and originally marketed as Rowntree's Clear Gums - "The nation's favourite sweet" - and were available in twopenny tubes and sixpenny packets. In addition to the traditional roll packaging, they were available in a larger-volume box containing the sweets in the shape of the fruit or part of the fruit that the flavour represents.
In 2020 Nestlé have made the move to manufacture Fruit Gums solely in the bag format. The sweets in the bag format are the traditional fruit shaped sweets which are a little lighter than the previous round shapes sweets that you would find in the tubes. The new bags are recyclable through the Terracycle scheme.

Ingredients

Fruit Gums are primarily composed of glucose syrup and fruit juices. The fruit juice content was 25 percent up until around 2010 when it was changed to 1 percent concentrated fruit juice. Similar confectionary such as wine gums do not contain fruit juice but some brands do contain plant extracts.
In 2017, Nestlé announced that they will reduce the amount of sugar by 30%.

"Don't Forget the Fruit Gums, Mum"

An advertising campaign for the gums that ran for three years from 1958 to 1961 included the slogan "Don't Forget the Fruit Gums, Mum". The slogan was invented by the copywriter Roger Musgrave.
The television advert featured a young boy reminding his mother to buy fruit gums as she leaves to go shopping. The advert claims that " last all day" and that "Rowntree's Fruit Gums last the longest". This referred to the number of sweets in the tube.