Agar-agar gummies, a healthy treat

Traditional gummies are one of the most vilified foods in recent years. Their sugar and additive content has led dieticians to place them on the list of non-recommended foods.

On the other hand, they usually contain gelatin of animal origin. The trend in recent years has been to reduce the consumption of animal ingredients and the market is increasingly demanding vegan products. 

However, the consumption of this guilty pleasure is very high and not only among children. A study carried out by Statista Gloval Consumer Survey in 2020 analyzed the consumption of gummies among adults between 18 and 64 years old and revealed that 61% of Germans consume them regularly, 59% in the United Kingdom, 49% in Spain and 50% in the United States.

But is there a healthy way to consume gummies? After all, the healthiness of a gummy candy depends on the ingredients. Industrial manufacturers are increasingly replacing juices, additives and sugars with fruit.

To replace gelatin of animal origin, agar-agar is increasingly being used as a substitute. Agar-agar makes it possible to reduce or eliminate the sugar content because, unlike other plant-based gelling agents such as pectin, agar-agar does not require the presence of other ingredients in order to gel.As a result, healthier gummies can be launched on the market, with a taste very similar to traditional gummies and suitable for vegans, people with celiac disease and all those who eat Halal and Kosher food.

At Hispanagar we have the perfect agars for producing gummies and we also have Ecoagar, our agar with European organic certification.