Belgian candy makers JORIS

"... Joris Van den Driessche, the grandfather of the current manager Hans Van den Driessche, set out the course of this marvellous adventure in the years '20-'30. During the years '30-'40 his son Jan Van den Driessche took control of Joris: in his small kitchen he did everything himself and he managed to produce at least 50 kilos of sweets a day! Everything was manually produced, as well the chocolate truffles as the hard confectionery, the soft toffees, the coated tablets, the nougat and the gums. When the Second World War broke out, the production was disturbed: the only remaining ingredients were sugar and gelatin. As a result, Joris concentrated on the production of gums, a product that was only a small part of their product range. It was a judicious choice as Joris is currently the Belgian market leader in quality gums ..."

From their website http://www.joris-sweets.be/ENG/Html/ontstaan.htm

As a child, I was addicted to the traditional Belgian candies manufactured the old fashioned way by JORIS. Above are just a few samples from their line of hard and soft gum candies. My favorites? The hard sour gums and the hard licorice coins. With very few ingredients, these little devils in disguise are packaged in biodegrable cellophane (and that, way way WAY before being 'green' was "in").

Now, JORIS manufactures 'BioGom' aka Organic Sweets that are also fair trade!

Above are just a few samples from their line of Organic hard gum candies.

Bio gum is a organic sweet, made of natural acacia gum (a resin of the Acacia tree from Sudan), organic cane sugar 40% (Fair Trade), organic wheat syrup, natural flavors, fruit and plant extracts.

Some qualities of acia gum are: soluble fiber, poor in calories, stimulates the capacity of the intestine, can help to reduce the cholesterol level ...

Contains: calcium, potassium, magnesium, and sodium

JORIS is only available in Belgium.

More info at http://www.joris-sweets.be/ENG/Html/ontstaan.htm