If your For You Page lately has been hijacked by pastel gummies, foam skulls, and someone dramatically biting into something sour, that's not a coincidence. Swedish candy has taken over a real corner of TikTok, and it tastes nothing like the candy aisle you grew up with. Once people try it, they usually order more.
We carry the actual candy behind a lot of those videos, BUBS included, at our stores in Hull, Massachusetts and Beacon Hill, Boston, and we ship it nationwide. Here's what's going viral, why it tastes different, and how to build your own bag, no flight required.
What's going viral, exactly
Mostly one candy: BUBS. Specifically the sour foam shapes, skulls, shells, little fruit pieces, coated in tart sugar and dyed the kind of neon that photographs well. People pour them into glass jars for ASMR videos. They film reaction videos biting into the sour ones and regretting it on camera thirty seconds later. They build five-pound haul bags and rank every shape by sourness.
None of that is staged. The sour hit on a BUBS skull is sharper than most American sour candy, and the surprise on camera reads as real because it is.
It's not just BUBS either. Pick-and-mix candy in general, the kind you scoop yourself from open bins, has become its own genre of video. Loose candy poured into containers. Big glossy scoops. Satisfying for reasons nobody's fully explained, and it happens to be exactly how Swedish candy has always been sold, long before TikTok existed.
Why Swedish candy tastes different from what you grew up with
Two things surprise first-timers. The sour candy uses a sharper acid than the citric-heavy stuff in most American sour gummies, so it hits faster and lingers longer. And then there's salmiak, salty licorice, which either becomes an instant favorite or gets spit into a napkin within three seconds. There isn't much middle ground with that one. We wrote a whole explainer on salmiak if you want to know what you're tasting before you commit to a bag.
Texture's different too. Chewier, less uniform than a bag of gummy bears, because a lot of it really is small-batch. The ingredient lists tend to be shorter as well, real fruit flavoring shows up more than the usual dye-and-corn-syrup combo. That's not a health claim, some of it is still just sugar, but it's a genuine difference you can taste, not marketing language.
How to build your own pick-and-mix bag
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Grab a bag at the pick-and-mix wall.
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Fill it. Mix the BUBS with the salmiak, or don't. Your bag, your rules.
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Bring it to the counter, weigh it, pay. That's it.
Come do it in person on Charles Street in Beacon Hill or Nantasket Ave in Hull, both stores have the wall stocked. Or order over $99 and shipping's free to Massachusetts, New York, and Connecticut. Nationwide otherwise.
Frequently asked questions
Is BUBS candy really from Sweden? Yes. It's manufactured in Sweden and imported, not made under license somewhere else.
Can I buy viral Swedish candy in the US? Yes, in person at Nantasket Sweets in Hull, MA and Beacon Hill, Boston, or online HERE.
Do you ship Swedish candy nationwide? Yes. Free shipping over $99 to Massachusetts, New York, and Connecticut, nationwide otherwise.
What makes Swedish candy different from American candy? A different acid profile in the sour pieces, less reliance on the usual dye-and-corn-syrup formula, and salty licorice styles that don't really have an American equivalent.