How Bubs is maintaining momentum from the stateside Swedish candy craze

Bubs was a cult favorite Swedish candy with steadily growing sales and a small international business when its founders, the Lindström family, sold it to Norwegian CPG giant Orkla in 2023. Neither had any idea that, in a year, a Swedish candy craze would sweep the US.

One weekend in January 2024, an influencer’s viral TikTok chronicling her visit to New York City chain BonBon to get Swedish sweets, including Bubs’s dual-flavored marshmallow-gummy hybrid candies, kickstarted a stateside consumer obsession that sent lines snaking, sales soaring, and new candy stores opening to capitalize. Soon, a global Bubs shortage ensued: retailers, distributors, and consumers were calling nonstop, and the candies were even being sold on the gray market, Niclas Arnelin, who was Bubs’s CEO before its sale and has since shifted to lead its international expansion, told Retail Brew.

“As a company, you need to ask yourself, ‘Is this hype [lasting for] two weeks, or is it two months? Or is it two years?’ We had no clue,” he said.

Fast forward two years, and with expansion into 35,000 US retail locations to show for it, it’s clear the Bubs bonanza is still quite sticky.

Taking a bite: Prior to its US expansion, exports were only about 15% of Bubs’s total revenue, so to strategize how to handle its newfound US popularity in 2024, it partnered with Business Sweden, a partly government-owned consultancy that helps Swedish companies expand internationally.

That led Bubs to partner last year with Texas-based manufacturer Mount Franklin Foods, which now makes and sells Bubs products in the US, conducting consumer tests to determine its US flavor lineup (Swedish favorite raspberry licorice was a “no-go” in the US, according to Arnelin). But while Arnelin said Business Sweden recommended Bubs start small with mom-and-pop shops, Bubs and Mount Franklin Foods chose to take advantage of the demand and grow brand awareness by pitching its packaged Bubs to the biggest names in retail.

Now, its 5.5-ounce bags are sold at nationwide retailers including Kroger, Target, and Walgreens, and in bulk packs at Costco.

Eye candy: Arnelin began his food career selling US brands—first candy giant Mars, then bakery brand Sara Lee—in the Swedish market. Now he’s doing the reverse.

“I must admit that it has always been a dream of mine to be able to launch some brand in the US,” he said. “Given this opportunity, it’s just amazing.”

While Arnelin said he “humbly” recognizes that user-generated content drove Bubs’s US success, the brand is more in the driver’s seat now. An NYC Bubs pop-up last fall garnered 3.1 billion media impressions, while its aggressive retail strategy has renewed the excitement as shoppers discover the products and post taste-tests in their cars in their local grocers’ parking lots. Arnelin said velocities at retail have been strong so far, with a new 10 oz. sweet and sour mix just launching Walmart, and expansion on Amazon forthcoming.

“We’re not in it to just capitalize on the hype,” he said. “That’s not how we drive or build brands as a company. We are in it for the long run. We want to be a big player in the market, and we will take the effort to become that…We’re not backing up now.”

Sweet serendipity: With the Bubs’s sale coming just a year before its viral moment (its sales had been growing an average of 10% annually when it was sold), Arnelin, who was also a small shareholder alongside the Lindström family, doesn’t have any what-ifs.

“You should never have second thoughts in life,” he said. “All stakeholders in that deal were happy. The sellers were happy and the buyers were also happy at the time. But of course, when the stars are aligned and you can move really fast, that is luck.”

In fact, while Bubs had “slightly” considered US expansion prior to 2024, Arnelin believes its recent growth wouldn’t have been possible without that sale to Orkla.

“If we weren’t bought by a bigger company with bigger muscles, we wouldn’t [have] been able to go this broadly this fast,” he said.