Riegel, Hans, Sr. (1893-1945), was a German businessman who invented gummy bears (also spelled gummi bears), one of the world’s most popular candies . Riegel started the candy company HARIBO in 1920 at age 27.
Hans Riegel was born in Friesdorf, a village near Bonn , Germany, on April 3, 1893. After attending technical school, Riegel trained as a confectioner, learning how to make hard candy. He worked for the Kleutgen & Meier candy company until he decided to start his own business in 1920. Riegel named his new company HARIBO, an acronym he created by using the first two letters from his first and last names and from the name of Bonn.
Riegel set up his first production plant in a house he purchased in the Bonn suburb of Kessenich and began producing hard candy. He started out with little more than a sack of sugar, a stove, and a copper kettle.
Riegel married a woman named Gertrud in 1921, and she became his first employee. She distributed the candy to customers around town on her bicycle. Although their hard candy business was successful, Hans Riegel noticed the growing success of a competitor who produced a gelatin fruit candy. In 1922, the Riegels used a tiny “dancing bear” mold to produce their own brand of fruit gum candy for children. It was the first gummy bear. The fruity, chewy jellies became extremely popular and came to be known as HARIBO Goldbears. HARIBO grew rapidly. It soon began manufacturing licorice products, including the famous Licorice Wheel. The “wheel” was a licorice whip rolled into a disk.
Riegel died on March 31, 1945, at age 52. After his death, his wife ran HARIBO until their two sons, Hans Jr. and Paul, took over the business in 1946. HARIBO’s Goldbears have since won fans worldwide. Today, the company has more than a dozen factories around the world, producing about 100 million gummy bears a day.
