The History of Jelly Belly Beans

We have been thinking about Jelly Belly jelly beans a lot at the moment. We recently had a portrait, created by artist Malcolm West, of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge made entirely out of Jelly Belly beans in our shop in Keswick. To commemorate this we held a competition to win £25 worth of, yep, you guessed it, jelly beans! So with jelly beans on our mind we thought we would take a look at the history of the Jelly Belly bean and see how it all started.

The idea for a truly great tasting jelly bean came about in 1960 when 19-year-old Herman Goelitz Rowland took over the family candy business. He was a fourth generation candy maker, his great-grandad Gustav Goelitz, a German immigrant, started the business in 1869 after buying an ice cream and candy store. Herman's idea, and the signature of the company, was to create a jelly bean with flavours in the centre but also the shell of the jelly bean. He also insisted on using the very best ingredients regardless of costs to ensure his jelly beans tasted terrific

The idea for the Jelly Belly beans that we know and love today came about in 1976 with a collaboration between Herman Goelitz and a Los Angeles based candy distributor who had an idea for a jelly bean made with natural flavourings. Together they came up with recipes that used Herman's original idea of flavoured shells and centres but only used, wherever possible natural ingredients to create their flavours and in 1976 the first eight Jelly Belly flavours were created. They were: Very Cherry, Lemon, Cream Soda, Tangerine, Green Apple, Root Beer, Grape and Liquorice. All are still available today and still some of the most popular flavours.

Today, Jelly Belly are still produced by the descendents of the Goelitz family and are the worlds number one jelly bean. There are 50 official flavours in the Jelly Belly range as well as some seasonal flavours and different assortments. Also lets not forget the 'rookie' flavours which if popular enough could move into the top 50, at the moment they include Green Tea, Guava, Lychee, Honey and Dark Chocolate.