Haribo

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Haribo's Corporate Logo

Haribo production site in Uzes, France

Haribo is a confectionery producer, founded in 1920 in Germany by Hans Riegel Sr. The company headquarters are in Bonn and the name is an acronym for Hans Riegel, Bonn.

After Hans Riegel Sr. died during World War II, his son, also named Hans Riegel, took over the company. Haribo expanded its operations taking over many local sweet manufacturers in countries all over the world.

Today, Haribo is the biggest manufacturer of gummi and jelly sweets in the world, with its products mainly consisting of gummi bears, other gummi candies and licorice. There are five factories in Germany and 13 throughout the rest of Europe. There are sales offices in almost every country in Europe as well as in the United States.

Haribo was one of several German companies which is alleged to have employed forced labour in its factories during World War II. Haribo disputes this, and has declined to contribute to an ex-gratia payment made by other German companies to survivors.[1]

Haribo's German older catch phrase is "Haribo macht Kinder froh / und Erwachsene ebenso", which is translated as "Haribo makes Kids happy / and adults too". Now the slogan is "Kids and grown-ups love 'em so!" The voice of Thomas Gottschalk has been connected with the Haribo advertisements since 1991.

In English, to preserve the rhyme, it becomes "Kids and grown-ups love it so / the happy world of Haribo", whilst in French the slogan translates as "Haribo, c'est beau la vie / pour les grands et les petits", and in Italian as "Haribo è la bontà / che si gusta ad ogni età". In Spanish it is "Haribo, dulces sabores / para pequeños y mayores" and in Dutch it is "Haribo maakt kinderen blij / volwassenen horen ook daarbij". In Danish the catch phrase is different from the other countries, "Luk op for noget godt, luk op for Haribo - Den er go'" which translates into "open up for something good, open up for Haribo - it's good".

Haribo's key brands in the UK are Starmix, Tangfastics, Supermix and Strawbs. These all feature in the UK's top 5 selling sugar confectionery lines according to IRI data.^{[citation needed]}

Haribo UK is the distributor of PEZ products in the United Kingdom. They have a factory in Pontefract, West Yorkshire. Haribo also make Pontefract Cakes at these premises and others.

The Landesmuseum Koblenz (Germany) created a travelling exhibition about the history of Haribo in 2006. Currently the exhibition can be seen in Graz (Austria) at the Volkskundemuseum.