Forget the red strawberry fish. This Swedish candy is my new favorite—and a Taste of Home Award winner.
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You have to hand it to the Swedes. They’ve given us affordable DIY furniture, delicious meatballs and Scandinavian pop music (hello, Abba fans!). They also turned buying candy into a celebratory weekly event with lördagsgodis (“Saturday sweets”), a weekend ritual where Swedish families head to local candy stores to scoop their favorite gummies, marshmallow foamy candies and licorice from bins into a bag. The treats are meant to be enjoyed only on Saturday, making the whole experience feel special.
Since I don’t live in Sweden or near a pick-and-mix candy store, the best I can do for lördagsgodis is buy prepackaged bags of Swedish candy and try to stop myself from eating it every day of the week. That’s nearly impossible with the Sockerbit sour mix, my current candy obsession. Sockerbit sells some of the best-tasting Swedish gummies, foamy treats and salty licorice I’ve ever had. But thanks to their puckery goodness, the sour gummies are what really keep me coming back. They taste like a grown-up treat—though I haven’t had this much fun eating candy since I was a kid.
Sockerbit Sour Mix
Swedish Candy Is Going Viral
“Swedish candy” might make you think of colorful gummy fish, but there’s so much more to try. It comes in all different shapes, colors, textures and flavors, from sour fruit gummies to marshmallow-y sweets to salty black licorice. While they have pretty pastel and vibrant hues, many popular Swedish candies are free of synthetic dyes and artificial flavors, and some are vegan or gluten-free.
And you can taste the difference. I mean, it’s still candy, but it tastes more wholesome, almost sophisticated, than most American brands. It’s easy to see why it’s become a viral sensation on TikTok, and celebrities like Justin Timberlake and Bethenny Frankel show off their Swedish candy hauls on social media.
The thing is: Not all Swedish candy is equal. While you’ll find many of the same shapes and flavors packaged by various brands, the taste and texture of the candies differ in quality. I’ve had some Swedish sour gummies that were impossible to chew, some that lacked any real sour coating, and some that had a weird aftertaste. Sockerbit’s sour gummies have the best texture (some are chewier than others) and most vibrant flavors, and there’s no mistaking that they are sour.
The Sockerbit Sour Mix Is Peak Swedish Candy
Digging into a bag of Sockerbit candy is an adventure for your taste buds. The shapes and colors sometimes belie the flavor of each gummy, so you don’t always know what you’re eating until you take a bite. Anything red is most likely a berry flavor—strawberry and raspberry are delicious—and that blue and white nugget is clearly blueberry. But the yellow rings could be a sharp sour lemon, or is it…pineapple? Good luck knowing that the brown and yellow rambo, a chewy sour gummy tube with a sweet center that looks like a little piece of candy pasta, is actually passionfruit and mango flavored. If you can’t figure out the flavor while you’re eating any of the gummies, just check the brand’s website for the full list of candies.
One of the first pieces I tried looked like a slice of pale, peachy fruit, so I assumed it was peach or maybe citrus. Nope! It was cantaloupe, and it might just be my favorite sour gummy so far. If you’re looking for peach, those candies are yellow and pink and deliver a big hit of juicy fruit. The flavor in Sockerbit’s sour cherry cola bottles comes in waves: a hit of zippy citrus first, then cherry, then cola. It’s like Willy Wonka’s Three-Course Dinner Gum, where something new appears with each chew.
What gives Sockerbit sour candies their puckery bite is the sweet-tart sparkly sour sugar coating. It packs a zingy punch, and some pieces are so sharp, you might wince. But that balance of sugar and zip is what makes each sour candy mouthwateringly good. And none of it has a weird perfumey or chemical aftertaste that you find in other gummies.
Where to Buy Sockerbit Candy
When you see Sockerbit (the name means “sugar cube”) in the wild, the packaging stands out for its simplicity. It’s not baiting kids with bright colors, cartoon characters and big, bubbly fonts. Instead, the stylish bags with white backgrounds and blocks of color remind me of Ikea. Think: more minimalist with a modern pop sensibility that draws in design-minded candy eaters. Will it grab your 8-year-olds’ attention? Probably not. Will they love it? It’s candy—of course they will!
You can find Sockerbit at Target, which sells small bags of sour mix, sweet mix, and sour cherry cola gummies. (I didn’t find it in the candy aisle at my Target, so if you’re shopping in person you might need to ask where it is.) Target also carries seasonal and limited-edition Sockerbit bags, like spring Strawberry Dream marshmallows and Easter mixes shaped like flowers and fried eggs.
World Market—truly a global marketplace for snacks—also sells small bags of the sweet, sour and seasonal mixes, as well as larger 8-ounce resealable bags of sweet and sour gummies and the licorice mix.
If you find that one flavor you must have more of (sour cantaloupe! watermelon!), you can also order Sockerbit candies by the quarter, half or full pound via the company’s website for shipping. I might just have to make Saturday (or Monday, Tuesday and Friday) sour-sweets a thing.
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