What Came First, The Gummy Bear Or Worm? There Actually Is An Answer

You may prefer those joyful little bears, or you may favor the whimsical, wriggly worms. Either way, they're the two most popular gummy candies in the world, and we're only too happy to partake. But which came first? It sounds like it could be a trick question, like with the chicken or the egg, but in truth there's a straightforward answer: gummy bears came first.

People have been making soft, chewy candies for centuries. Turkish delight, the confection that got Edmund Pevensie to sell out his siblings in C.S. Lewis' "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe," was one such candy; in Japan, chewy candies were made from rice — but those were made soft with substances like cornstarch or rice; it wasn't until wine gums, a popular British candy, that gelatin was first used. And it wasn't until 1921 that someone decided to make candies shaped like cute little animals.

That someone was Hans Riegel of Bonn, Germany, who ran a candy company called Haribo (named after the first and last syllables of his first and last name, plus that of his home city). He had been selling hard candies with modest success, but true greatness was approaching. He started making fruit candies, softened with gelatin, in the shape of dancing bears, a popular fairground attraction in the days before animal cruelty laws. They were an instant hit, and after a brief detour due to World War II, Haribo became a confectionary giant — except you might want to avoid the frogs, our least favorite Haribo gummy.

Gummy worms didn't come along for another sixty years, by which point they had become hugely popular internationally. All gummy candies, especially gummy worms, are newer than you might think. The wiggly little treats weren't invented by Haribo this time; instead, they were the brainchild of a German competitor, Trolli, which started life after World War II as a pasta company. Gummy worms began as a candy kids would love and one that parents would find a little gross. (They tried this again in the '00s with gummy roadkill and ended up way overshooting the runway; the product was discontinued a year later.)

The worms' primary innovation was their multiple flavors. Unlike gummy bears, which could only have one flavor per bear due to their size, gummy worms were long enough to combine two flavors in one candy. Combined with their form factor and their playfulness, gummy worms became a big hit. We'll raise a Dirt Cup to that.