Jolly Rancher sales in 2024 hit $400 million, up 25 percent year over year, as demand for fruity flavors rose and confectioners tried to play up their non-chocolate offerings in light of high prices for cocoa. Hershey has also expanded the hard candy brand substantially, stretchig it into gummies, ropes, freeze-drie and even a spicy variety called Jolly Rancher Heat Wave Gummies coated what their legal department has decided to call “a chili-inspired finish.” Really, “chili-inspired” is a special kind of gustatory legal genius to describe a substance that, while irritating to the soft tissues of the mouth in that way today’s consumers crave, legally and chemically can’t actually be implied to be from a chili pepper.
Christopher Doering, Food Dive
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