I'd never heard of Katjes confectionary before, but apparently it's a family owned business based in Germany, and is the second largest producer of fruit gums and licorice in Western Europe. The brand is available in the UK for the first time (at Tesco) with the Better Bunny vegetarian friendly sweets.
These bunny sweets bear more than a passing resemblance to a certain range of piggy shaped sweets made by M&S. Yes, I'm talking about Percy Pig. Having taken a quick look at the Katjes website it seems that they also produce a pig shaped sweet, called Pauly the Pig, although only in a veggie version. Funnily enough, M&S now sell a vegetarian version of Percy Pig. So which was first? Veggie Percy or Pauly the Pig?
Update: In fact since writing this review I've realised that Katjes are actually the makers of the Percy Pig sweets' range. No wonder they look so similar!
Now, I'm no expert on Percy Pig sweets, please check out Gobble Monkey for all your Percy Pig needs. I haven't even tried the Veggie Percy yet, so I can't really compare them to the Katjes Better Bunny in terms of taste. I can only say that I really enjoyed these bunny sweets, especially the texture. They're super squidgy and soft, without any of the chewiness that you would find in a traditional jelly based sweet. The flavour is fairly simple and very sweet, with the fruitiness of the 3.5% apple juice coming through nicely. They do have a slight tart edge in them too, especially the white ones, which provide a pleasant counterbalance to the sugary taste. The pink ones were much sweeter, but still apple flavoured, which is slightly disappointing.
Overall, these are a very tasty treat, and it's always great to see a different brands of vegetarian sweets becoming available in the UK.
Grocery Gems Verdict: Katjes Better Bunny
RATING: 7 out of 10.
Buy them again?: Yes.
Nutrition: 340 calories per 100g.
Vegetarian: Yes (but not vegan as beeswax is listed as an ingredient).
Purchased: Tesco.
Price: £1.48p for 170g bag.
Definitely very Percy Pig like, that was my first thought when I saw these! It's great that Tesco is stocking vegetarian friendly sweets, kudos to them for that.
ReplyDeleteAs I have German relatives I've had a fair few Katjes sweets in my time, they do a range of "salty licorice" fish-shaped jellies which are quite odd to say the least!
Seeing "salty licorice" and "fish" together in the same sentence does not sound very appetising at all! I don't imagine we'll be seeing those in Tesco anytime soon :D
ReplyDeleteKev, those sound horrendous lol.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason the little bunny faces freak me out a bit. They aren't really cute bunnies like on the packet! They kind of remind me of the bunny from Donny Darko. I am beginning to think I have an irrational fear of rabbits because Beau Bunny from Hotel Chocolat also REALLY freaked me out.
Salty liquorice is really popular in scandanavia. It's an acquired taste but after you break through the barrier they are actually quite addictive! It then becomes a competition as to just how salty you can take it. They even have dark chocolate with salty liquorice bits in them which is really lovely.
ReplyDeleteThey've had the veggie pigs in Europe for longer than veggie Percy's. I would get them in Vienna long before could get the ones from m&s. I find the texture of all veggie jelly sweets to be really 'short'. There is no chew to them. They also are a lot more sugary, in my opinion. But hey, hasn't stopped me from gobbling them up!