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Katjes makes and sells vegetarian gummy candies and licorice sweets.
Katjes is a German candy maker that sells fruit gums and licorice to people with a sweet tooth. Its big selling point is that its gummies are vegetarian — made without the animal gelatin that most chewy candies traditionally rely on. That sounds like a small thing, but it matters: classic gummy bears get their bounce from gelatin, which comes from animal bones and skin, so a vegetarian gummy needs a different recipe to get the same chew.
The company is headquartered in Emmerich, a town in western Germany near the Dutch border, and its candies fill supermarket shelves across Germany and beyond. It sells mostly through grocery stores and retailers rather than its own shops — shoppers pick up a bag of Katjes alongside their weekly groceries. The brand's playful names and shapes, plus its vegetarian positioning, help it stand out in a crowded candy aisle, and that difference is why many customers reach for it over cheaper rivals. Katjes also owns or partners with other candy brands, which lets it spread across more of the sweets market without putting everything under one name. Owning a family of brands is a common move in candy: it gives a company more shelf space and more chances to catch a shopper's eye, while sharing the costs of production and distribution.
The business is private and family-linked, so it doesn't answer to stock market investors or publish the kind of quarterly reports a public company does. That gives it room to play a longer game — investing in recipes, brands, and distribution without quarterly pressure. Candy is a steady, everyday business: people buy it regardless of the economy, though they do trade down to cheaper bags when money is tight. Katjes' bet is that being the tasty vegetarian option keeps it worth the few extra cents.
Saved answer · last researched 15 Nov 2026