Jelly Belly

Jelly Belly — The Original Gourmet Jelly Bean and the Brand Behind Bertie Bott's

Jelly Belly is the American confectionery company that created the modern gourmet jelly bean in 1976 and has since expanded into more than 100 flavors, dozens of licensed products (including Harry Potter's Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, BeanBoozled, Tabasco, Disney, and Marvel tie-ins), and a full line of gummies, chocolates, mellowcremes, and seasonal candy. The company's origins trace back more than 150 years to a German confectioner named Gustav Goelitz, who started a candy business in Belleville, Illinois in 1869. Today Jelly Belly beans are sold in more than 70 countries, the Fairfield, California factory produces roughly 1.68 million beans per hour, and a typical Jelly Belly jelly bean takes between seven and fourteen days to make — significantly longer than a regular jelly bean, which is part of what defines the "gourmet" category Jelly Belly invented.

Company History — From Candy Corn to the White House

Gustav Goelitz emigrated from Germany in 1866 and founded his confectionery business in 1869. By 1898 the Goelitz family was producing mellowcreme candies — a category that includes candy corn, which the family calls themselves the "candy corn king" of — and the company survived the Great Depression largely on candy corn's strength. The business split into two branches in the mid-20th century: Herman Goelitz Candy Company in Oakland, California, and Goelitz Confectionery Company in North Chicago, Illinois, run by cousins of the same family.

The Jelly Belly itself was born in 1976. David Klein, a Los Angeles candy distributor, approached Herman Rowland Sr. — the California company's president and Gustav Goelitz's great-grandson — with the idea of a "Rolls Royce of jelly beans" made with natural fruit purees and flavored all the way through, not just in the sugar shell. Rowland's company developed the concept into eight flavors (root beer, cream soda, licorice, grape, green apple, lemon, very cherry, and tangerine), and the beans debuted at Fosselman's Ice Cream in Alhambra, California in the summer of 1976. Klein coined the name "Jelly Belly" as a tribute to the blues musician Lead Belly and designed the red-and-yellow logo that has been used almost unchanged ever since. Klein sold his rights in the trademark to the Goelitz family in 1980 for $4.8 million paid in installments over twenty years; the trademark itself was registered in 1982.

The candy's breakout moment was political. Ronald Reagan had started eating Goelitz Mini Jelly Beans as a substitute after quitting pipe smoking during his California governorship, and the company sent him a monthly shipment. When Reagan ran for president in 1980 and then won, the press latched onto the jelly-bean habit. Three and a half tons of red, white, and blue Jelly Belly beans — blueberry was developed specifically for the occasion to complete the flag colors — were shipped to Washington for the 1981 inaugural festivities. Reagan kept a jar on the Cabinet Room table throughout his presidency, handed them to visiting foreign dignitaries, and in 1983 made Jelly Belly the first jelly bean in space by sending a batch aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger's STS-7 mission. The California and Illinois branches of the family formally merged as Jelly Belly Candy Company in 2001, and the company was acquired by Ferrara Candy Company in 2023.

How a Jelly Belly Is Different From a Regular Jelly Bean

The distinction Jelly Belly created in 1976 — and which still separates gourmet jelly beans from standard ones — is where the flavor lives in the bean. A traditional jelly bean has flavoring only in the hard sugar shell; the gelled center is effectively just sweetened gel. A Jelly Belly has flavor in both the center and the shell, and the two layers are often different flavors that combine when eaten. This is why Jelly Belly recipes work: two Blueberry beans plus one Buttered Popcorn combine to taste like Blueberry Muffin; one Lemon plus one Coconut tastes like Lemon Meringue Pie; three Cherry plus two Sour Cherry tastes like a cherry sour ball. The company has published an official Jelly Belly Recipes chart with more than thirty such combinations.

The Recipe Mix line (introduced in 2021) takes this concept further by putting two different flavors into a single bean — one flavor in the shell and a second flavor in the center — so that Lemon Meringue Pie, Chocolate Covered Banana, Peanut Butter & Jelly, Blueberry Muffin, and S'mores all exist as single-bean products rather than requiring the eater to combine pieces.

The production process itself is what justifies the "gourmet" label. A Jelly Belly takes between seven and fourteen days to make, compared to a few hours for a standard jelly bean. The center gel is cooked, flavored with real fruit purees and juices wherever possible (the official 50-flavor assortment is made with 23 different real fruit juices and purees), then deposited into a cornstarch mold and allowed to set. Once set, the center is tumbled with flavored sugar to build up the shell in layers, then polished with beeswax and carnauba wax. The layered construction is what lets the two-flavor combinations work.

The Core Flavor Lineup

The current official Jelly Belly assortment contains 50 flavors, with more than 100 total flavors produced across regional, seasonal, and specialty lines. The table below covers the best-known product categories.

Line	Description
Official 50-Flavor Assortment	The core flagship mix. Includes fruit flavors (Very Cherry, Juicy Pear, Green Apple, Blueberry, Watermelon, Pink Grapefruit, Strawberry Jam, Crushed Pineapple), soda flavors (A&W Root Beer, A&W Cream Soda, Dr Pepper, 7UP, Orange Crush), dessert flavors (Buttered Popcorn, Toasted Marshmallow, Cappuccino, Chocolate Pudding, French Vanilla, Caramel Corn, Strawberry Cheesecake, Birthday Cake Remix, Lemon Drop), and wild cards like Jalapeño. Very Cherry has been the top-selling flavor for most of the brand's history, briefly overtaken by Buttered Popcorn between 1998 and 2003.
Sours	Ten sour-sugar-coated flavors: Sour Apple, Sour Blueberry, Sour Cherry, Sour Grape, Sour Lemon, Sour Orange, Sour Peach, Sour Raspberry, Sour Strawberry, Sour Watermelon.
Cocktail Classics	Alcohol-free jelly beans inspired by mixed drinks: Mai Tai (the first, introduced in 1977), Piña Colada, Margarita, Strawberry Daiquiri, Mojito, and Draft Beer (a 2014 addition inspired by Hefeweizen ale). All entirely alcohol-free.
Soda Pop Shoppe	Soft-drink-flavored beans including 7UP, Dr Pepper, A&W Root Beer, A&W Cream Soda, Grape Crush, and Orange Crush. Produced under license from the respective soda brands.
Smoothie Blend	Fruit-smoothie flavors including Cherry Passion Fruit, Mandarin Orange Mango, Mixed Berry, Pineapple Pear, and Strawberry Banana.
Sport Beans	Jelly beans fortified with carbohydrates, electrolytes, and B vitamins, designed as a portable energy source for endurance sports. An Extreme Sport Beans version adds caffeine.
Sugar-Free Jelly Beans	A ten-flavor sugar-free assortment sweetened with maltitol and stevia. Unlike Haribo's sugar-free line, Jelly Belly's sugar-free beans have not generated significant gastrointestinal reports — the smaller serving size (beans rather than larger gummies) keeps the per-piece maltitol dose low.
Seasonal	Holiday-rotation flavors including Candy Cane, Eggnog, Gingerbread, Gramma's Pumpkin Pie, Hot Chocolate, and Hot Cider.

Licensed Products — Harry Potter, BeanBoozled, and Brand Partnerships

Jelly Belly produces a large portfolio of licensed and branded jelly beans, and the licensed lines are often the best-known products. Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, in particular, is one of the most recognizable candy products on earth — partly because it's genuinely distinctive (it contains flavors like Earwax and Vomit alongside Cherry and Marshmallow) and partly because the Harry Potter tie-in carries enormous brand recognition of its own.

Licensed Product	Description
Harry Potter Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans	Launched in 2000 under license from Warner Bros. Consumer Products. A 20-flavor mix split evenly between pleasant flavors (Banana, Blueberry, Candyfloss, Cherry, Cinnamon, Green Apple, Lemon, Marshmallow, Tutti-Frutti, Watermelon) and deliberately unpleasant flavors (Black Pepper, Booger, Dirt, Earthworm, Earwax, Grass, Rotten Egg, Sausage, Soap, Vomit). Packaged in a reusable box based on the Honeydukes sweet-shop design from the Harry Potter films. The flavors rotate occasionally — "Buttered Popcorn" was retired from the Bertie Bott's mix because it was too visually similar to "Rotten Egg."
Harry Potter Chocolate Frog	A milk chocolate frog-shaped candy sold with a collectible "Famous Wizard" trading card, mirroring the product in the books and films.
Harry Potter Jelly Slugs	Large, soft gummy candies shaped like slugs, based on the same Honeydukes confection referenced in the books.
BeanBoozled	A spin-off of the Bertie Bott's concept launched in 2007 and still produced. Every color appears twice in the mix — one a normal flavor, one a gross flavor — and there's no way to tell which is which until the bean is bitten. Current pairings include Peach / Barf, Juicy Pear / Booger, Coconut / Baby Wipes, Buttered Popcorn / Rotten Egg, Tutti-Frutti / Stinky Socks, Caramel Corn / Moldy Cheese, Chocolate Pudding / Canned Dog Food, Berry Blue / Toothpaste, Birthday Cake / Dirty Dishwater, and Lime / Lawn Clippings. The BeanBoozled Spinner Game packages turn it into a party-game product.
Tabasco	A genuinely spicy red jelly bean made with real Tabasco sauce. Produced under official license from McIlhenny Company.
Disney & Pixar	Themed jelly bean mixes tied to Disney properties including Mickey Mouse, Princess, and seasonal Pixar film tie-ins. Sold in character-branded boxes and tins.
Marvel & Star Wars	Character-themed mixes and gift tins produced under license. Rotating seasonally with film and show releases.
Krispy Kreme	A five-flavor assortment modeled on Krispy Kreme's signature doughnuts: Original Glazed, Glazed Chocolate Cake, Glazed Raspberry Filled, Cinnamon Sugar, and Strawberry Iced.

Beyond Jelly Beans — Confections by Jelly Belly

Jelly Belly has produced roughly 70 non-bean confections under the "Confections by Jelly Belly" line, drawing on the Goelitz family's older candy-making heritage. This includes candy corn (the Goelitz family has been producing candy corn continuously since the 1890s and claims candy-corn royalty), mellowcreme pumpkins and other mellowcreme shapes, chocolate-covered jelly beans (called JBz), jelly bean-shaped sour gummies, and classic items like Dutch Mints — a small chocolate-and-candy-shell mint that predates Jelly Belly as a company product. The seasonal rotation also includes Easter-specific lines, Halloween mellowcremes, Christmas gingerbread and eggnog flavors, and Fourth of July red-white-and-blue assortments.

Dietary Information

Jelly Belly jelly beans have a notably clean dietary profile compared to most gummy and chewy candies. Standard Jelly Belly beans are:

• OU Kosher Pareve — certified by the Orthodox Union. No dairy, no meat.
• Gluten-free — no wheat, barley, or rye in the recipes.
• Peanut-free — produced in peanut-free facilities. The Peanut Butter & Jelly flavor (in the Recipe Mix line) is specifically made without peanuts and is safe for peanut-allergic consumers.
• Dairy-free — no milk ingredients.
• Fat-free — zero grams of fat per serving.
• Gelatin-free — unlike most gummy candies, Jelly Belly beans contain no gelatin. This makes them vegetarian-friendly. The gelling agent is modified food starch, not animal-derived protein.
• Calorie count — approximately 4 calories per bean, or about 100 calories per 25-bean serving.

The Harry Potter Bertie Bott's line and the BeanBoozled line share the same allergen profile as the standard beans — kosher-certified, gluten-free, peanut-free, dairy-free, fat-free, and vegetarian-friendly. Sport Beans and Extreme Sport Beans add electrolytes, carbohydrates, and (in the Extreme version) caffeine but otherwise follow the same dietary profile. Always check the individual product label — some seasonal and licensed items may differ.

Storage and Shelf Life

Jelly Belly recommends storing jelly beans in a cool, dry place below 75°F (24°C), away from direct sunlight. Unopened packages have a best-before date of approximately one year from production. The cornstarch-and-sugar center and the wax-polished shell together keep the beans stable for months once opened, provided the bag is resealed or the beans are stored in an airtight container. Humidity is the main enemy — the shell can become sticky in humid conditions, which makes the beans clump together. Refrigeration is not necessary and can make the beans too firm to chew comfortably.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who invented Jelly Belly jelly beans?

Jelly Belly jelly beans were invented in 1976 through a collaboration between David Klein, a Los Angeles candy distributor who conceived the "gourmet jelly bean" concept, and Herman Rowland Sr., president of Herman Goelitz Candy Company, whose family-run candy business produced the beans. Klein coined the name Jelly Belly and designed the logo; Rowland's company developed the flavors and ran the production. Klein sold his rights to Rowland in 1980.

What makes a Jelly Belly different from a regular jelly bean?

A traditional jelly bean is flavored only in the sugar shell, with an unflavored gel center. A Jelly Belly has flavor in both the center and the shell, and the two layers are sometimes different flavors that combine when eaten. Production takes seven to fourteen days compared to a few hours for a standard jelly bean, and the flavors use real fruit juices and purees (23 different ones in the official 50-flavor assortment). This is the original definition of "gourmet jelly bean."

How many Jelly Belly flavors are there?

The official Jelly Belly assortment contains 50 flavors. More than 100 total flavors have been produced across the company's history, including seasonal, regional, sour, sugar-free, cocktail, smoothie, sport, and licensed lines. Very Cherry is the longest-running top-selling flavor, briefly overtaken by Buttered Popcorn between 1998 and 2003.

Are Harry Potter Bertie Bott's Beans real?

Yes. Jelly Belly launched Harry Potter Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans in 2000 under license from Warner Bros. Consumer Products. The product is a real 20-flavor mix split between pleasant flavors (Banana, Cherry, Green Apple, Marshmallow, and similar) and deliberately unpleasant ones (Booger, Dirt, Earwax, Rotten Egg, Vomit, and similar). The packaging is based on the Honeydukes sweet-shop design from the Harry Potter films.

What are the worst Bertie Bott's flavors?

The current gross-flavor lineup in the 20-flavor Bertie Bott's mix includes Black Pepper, Booger, Dirt, Earthworm, Earwax, Grass, Rotten Egg, Sausage, Soap, and Vomit. Each box includes a printed flavor chart showing which color maps to which flavor, but the beans are randomly assorted so a single bean's identity can only be confirmed by tasting or checking the chart.

Is BeanBoozled the same as Bertie Bott's?

No. BeanBoozled is a separate Jelly Belly product inspired by Bertie Bott's. In BeanBoozled, every color appears twice in the mix — one normal flavor and one disgusting flavor that look identical — so the eater cannot tell which they're about to taste. Current pairings include Peach / Barf, Juicy Pear / Booger, Coconut / Baby Wipes, Buttered Popcorn / Rotten Egg, and several others. Bertie Bott's, by contrast, assigns each flavor its own unique color.

Are Jelly Belly beans vegetarian or vegan?

Jelly Belly beans are vegetarian-friendly. Unlike most gummy and chewy candies, they contain no gelatin — the gelling agent is modified food starch rather than animal-derived protein. The beans do contain trace amounts of beeswax and confectioner's glaze (both derived from bees or insects), so strict vegans typically avoid them, but lacto-ovo vegetarians and most flexible-vegetarian diets have no issue with the ingredients.

Are Jelly Belly beans kosher, gluten-free, and peanut-free?

Yes. Standard Jelly Belly beans are certified OU Kosher Pareve, gluten-free, peanut-free, dairy-free, and fat-free. They are produced in peanut-free facilities, so the Peanut Butter & Jelly flavor in the Recipe Mix line is made without actual peanuts and is safe for peanut-allergic consumers. Always check the specific product label for seasonal or licensed items, which may occasionally differ.

How are Jelly Belly beans made?

The center is cooked with real fruit purees and juices, then deposited into cornstarch molds and allowed to set. Once set, the centers are tumbled in pans while layers of flavored sugar build up the shell. The finished beans are polished with beeswax and carnauba wax for shine. The whole process takes between seven and fourteen days per batch.

Were Jelly Belly beans really in space?

Yes. President Ronald Reagan sent a batch of Jelly Belly beans aboard NASA's Space Shuttle Challenger on the STS-7 mission in 1983, making them the first jelly beans in space. Reagan had become closely associated with Jelly Belly during his presidency — the company supplied a standing monthly order to the White House, and he kept a jar on the Cabinet Room table.

Related Collections

Jelly Belly products pair well with broader gift and snacking categories. Browse Gifts & Games for candy-adjacent gift sets and party supplies, and Home & Lifestyle for home essentials that complement a gift basket.