Worldwide Candy Taste

I recently received an email asking about the candy taste for different countries worldwide. It is very curious of course, because every country and culture has their own taste and cravings.

Here is the email:

Hi Sil,

I was wondering if you’ve ever researched what different cultures prefer when it comes to candy.  What peeked my interest in this is recently I came across a video of a lady from Finland decorating a birthday cake, and she was placing a lot of black licorice candy on top of the cake.  I read up on what people from Finland enjoy, and they eat a lot of black licorice….they even have a black licorice ice cream!  That is a flavor that Americans never seemed to have embraced much.  Do you know much about other cultures around the world?  Do you know anything about what people in Brazil like or how about Japan?  I would love to read any blog you might put out about this interesting topic!  Thanks for reading my letter!

From my research and living abroad for over ten years I’ve found out that the top candies for each country. I’ve lived in Finland and Spain. My story from living in Finland was very surprising as the email states about licorice. The Finns LOVE licorice for some reasons and its everywhere. They have licorice candy, ice cream, liquor and even tea. I even took a tour of the factory at the the biggest licorice maker Panda in Vaajakoski, Finland back in 2001. It was awesome because my best friends father worked there and we got first class tours and free candy of course! Panda is sold worldwide and very popular!

Now in Spain, things are a bit different. There is no particularly special candy but most people that I know have a weakness for chocolate. They eat many import chocolates and of course they love Chupa Chup which was the first original lollipop. For snacks many Spanish people eat chocolate sandwiches with a spread called Chocolate Nutella and I guess is almost equivalent to Americans eating peanut butter sandwiches. I don’t know HOW they do it but its popular among school kids and young adults.

For the rest of the countries that I know of here are the popular international candies

• German Candy – Chocolates and gummy candy from Haribo (shop)
• Switzerland Candy – Chocolates
• French Candy – Hard Candy, Jelly Beans, Licorice (shop)
• Finnish Candy – Licorice, Toffee, Chocolate (shop)
• English Candy – Hard Candy, Wine Gums (shop)
• Polish Candy – Chocolates and Hard Candy (shop)
• Holland Candy – Hard Candy, Toffee (VanMelle)
• Swedish Candy – Licorice, Wine Gums, Toffee ~ Dumie (shop)  – Famous brands – Dumie, Swedish Fish
• Asian Candy (Japan, China) – Nostalgia candy, gummies, chocolate, hard candy (Big variety, looks and design)

Here is a map of popular candy taste in France based on regions. Pretty neat!