Every gummy bear you've ever bitten the head off owes its existence to a rented kitchen in Bonn, Germany, a sack of sugar, and a confectioner who thought children's lollies should have a bit of personality. Over a century later, his little dancing bear has grown into one of the most recognisable sweets on the planet. Here's how it happened.
A Confectioner Named Hans Riegel
On 13 December 1920, a confectioner named Hans Riegel Sr. founded a small candy company in Bonn, Germany. His entire operation fit in a rented room: a sack of sugar, a copper pot, a marble slab, a stool, a stone stove and a rolling pin. His wife, Gertrud, became the company's first employee in 1921, delivering finished sweets to customers by bicycle before the business could afford its first vehicle.
Riegel named his company HARIBO, a syllabic mash-up of his own name and his city: Hans Riegel Bonn. It's a naming trick so simple you'll never forget it once you know it.
The Dancing Bears of Europe
Gelatine and gum-based sweets, things like gumdrops, wine gums and Turkish delight, already existed by the early 1920s. What Riegel added was character, quite literally. In 1922, he created a small gummy candy shaped like a bear on its hind legs, which he called the "Tanzbär," or Dancing Bear. The shape was reportedly inspired by the trained dancing bears that used to travel with performers and entertain crowds at European festivals and fairs, a once-common (and thankfully long-discontinued) form of street entertainment.
Those original Dancing Bears looked quite different to the gummy bears in your lolly bag today. At around 1.5 inches tall, they were noticeably bigger and slimmer than the modern shape, and they were made using gum arabic rather than gelatine, giving them a firmer, chewier bite. It wasn't a runaway overnight sensation, but it was something genuinely new: a sweet with a shape, a face, and a bit of fun built in.
From Dancing Bear to Goldbear
The company grew steadily through the 1920s and 30s. In 1925, HARIBO expanded into liquorice sweets, and by 1930 the business had grown to around 400 employees and adopted the slogan that Germans still recognise today: "HARIBO macht Kinder froh" ("HARIBO makes children happy"). Hans Riegel Sr. died in 1945, during the final months of the Second World War, and his sons Hans Jr. and Paul took over the company in 1946, rebuilding it from just 30 employees back up to around 1,000 within a few years.
The Dancing Bear itself kept evolving. In 1960, it was renamed "Goldbär," or Goldbear, and the name was officially trademarked in 1967. In 1978, the shape got a significant redesign, shorter legs and a more compact, rounder body, giving us the familiar gummy bear silhouette we'd recognise instantly today.
Crossing the Atlantic
HARIBO didn't officially enter the United States until 1982, setting up shop in Baltimore, Maryland. By then it had competition: the American company Herman Goelitz (better known today as Jelly Belly) had launched its own gummy bears in 1981, and another rival, Trolli, was also in the game. Still, the original Goldbear held its ground. HARIBO moved its headquarters to Grafschaft, Germany in 2018, the same year it became the best-selling gummi brand in the United States, and in 2020 the company celebrated its 100th birthday.
Fun Gummy Bear Facts
- HARIBO now produces around 160 million Goldbears every single day, across 17 factories, and sells them in more than 100 countries.
- The original 1922 Dancing Bears were made with gum arabic, a plant-based gum, rather than the gelatine used in most gummy bears today.
- HARIBO's famous slogan, "HARIBO macht Kinder froh," has an English-language twist too: "Kids and grown-ups love it so, the happy world of HARIBO."
- The Riegel family still owns and runs HARIBO more than a century later, now in its third generation of leadership.
- The Goldbear name and its distinctive shape have been trademarked since 1967, protecting that familiar silhouette worldwide.
Still Dancing, A Century Later
From a rented Bonn kitchen to billions of bears eaten worldwide every year, the gummy bear's journey is a genuinely sweet one. Hans Riegel set out to make a lolly with a bit of character, and a hundred-odd years later, that same small dancing bear shape is still bringing a smile to lolly bags everywhere, ours very much included.
References
- Smithsonian Magazine. The Colorful History of Haribo Goldbears, the World's First Gummy Bears.
- HARIBO. Our History.
- Wikipedia. Haribo.
- Wikipedia. Hans Riegel Sr..