Jolly Rancher

Jolly Rancher is a brand of sweet, somewhat tangy or sour/sweet hard candy,^[1] gummies, fruit chews, jelly beans, lollipops, gelatin desserts, gum, and sodas.^[2] It is currently owned by The Hershey Company. The product was originally produced by the Jolly Rancher Company, founded in 1949 by Bill Harmsen of Golden, Colorado.^[1] The Jolly Rancher Company made ice cream, chocolate and candy sold at several "Ranch Maid Ice Cream" stores in the Denver area. The name was meant to suggest a hospitable, western company.^[1]

Acquisitions

Jolly Rancher was sold to Beatrice Foods in 1966 and to Leaf Brands in 1983. In 1996, Leaf North America was acquired by the Hershey Company.^[1]

In 2002, Hershey closed the Wheat Ridge, Colorado plant and moved the manufacturing of the candy to Mexico to save costs.^[3]

History

Bill Harmsen founded the Jolly Rancher Company in 1949 with the goal of having a name that seemed friendly and welcoming to customers. His candies were originally sold in Denver, Colorado, making his other products like ice cream hard to sell in the cold winter months. Since this became an issue, Harmsen decided to put his main focus into his hard candies. He figured that this would be something that could be enjoyed year-round, no matter the cold temperatures. ^[4]

Flavors

Jolly Rancher candies original flavors were watermelon, grape, apple, and Fire Stix. They then introduced cherry, orange tangerine, lemon, peach, and sour apple. Eventually, blue raspberry replaced lemon. In 2013, lemon was reintroduced in an all-lemon bag. Current flavors include cherry, blue raspberry, grape, green apple and watermelon. There are also sour, berry, cinnamon, and smoothie varieties. In 2015, Jolly Rancher offered a "Fruity Bash" variety bag which includes strawberry, mountain berry, lemon, orange, and pineapple. They also offer a "red" bag, with flavors such as strawberry and fruit punch, along with other "red" flavors. As of 2012, the peach flavor and wild berry flavors were discontinued by The Hershey Company.

Chemistry

Jolly ranchers are amorphous solids, meaning their molecular arrangements have no specific pattern. They are hard, brittle, rigid, transparent and have low molecular mobility.^[5] Jolly ranchers are formed from highly concentrated sugar solutions (greater than 95% sugar) and have extremely high viscosity. Their “glassy” appearance is a result of the way they were processed. During processing, the sugar syrup is cooled so rapidly that no crystals have time to form. Jolly ranchers hold their solid shape when kept in temperatures less than the glass transition temperature (T_g). If the temperature is greater than the T_g, the hard, glassy like structure of the Jolly Rancher will become soft and rubbery material.^[6]

Manufacturing

Jolly Ranchers are manufactured by creating a solution of corn syrup, sucrose, glucose, or fructose syrup that is boiled to a temperature of 160 °C and cooled to create a supersaturated mixture that is roughly 2.5 percent water.^[7] As the mixture is cooled, natural and artificial flavoring, artificial colors (red 40, blue 1, yellow 5, yellow 6.specific) is added to individual batches of syrup solution which is later mixed with malic acid to improve shelf life and add further flavor. Once the mixture begins to cool it is then extruded into long malleable strings that are cut to size and individually wrapped and packaged.^[8]

Ingredients

The main ingredients of the original hard candy Jolly Ranchers are: ^[9]

- Corn syrup

- Sugar

- Malic Acid

- Natural flavor and Artificial flavor

- Mineral Oil

- Lecithin

Nutritional Information

1 serving of the original hard candy Jolly Ranchers contains: ^[9]

- 3 pieces

- 70 calories

- 0 g Saturated Fats (0 PDV)

- 0 g Total Fat (0 PDV)

- 10 mg Cholesterol (0 PDV)

- 0 g Proteins

- 0 g Dietary Fiber (0 PDV)

- 11 g Sugar

- 0g Vitamin C (0 PDV)

References

External links

• Jolly Rancher at thehersheycompany.com