Chewits stands as a towering, multi-generational icon of the British confectionery market, instantly recognizable by its uniquely dense, elastic texture and intensely juicy fruit flavours that have captivated the taste buds of children and nostalgic adults alike for over sixty years.
At its core, Chewits is a brand of individually wrapped, cuboid-shaped fruit chews tightly packed into traditional paper stick packs, delivering a longer-lasting, more satisfying chew.
What truly cements Chewits as an intrinsically British cultural staple is its deep-rooted heritage in post-war UK sweet-shop culture and its legendary contribution to the golden age of British television advertising. Born out of the classic English seaside tradition, the sweet was invented in 1963 by a visionary confectioner named J. Arthur Holland at the historic Holland’s Toffee Factory in Southport, England. Holland was on a mission to solve a common dilemma faced by British school children sorting through their pocket money: traditional boiled sweets were dangerously hard, while classic British toffees were incredibly heavy and jaw-tiring. Through meticulous experimentation with sugar pulling and concentrated fruit bases, Holland developed a pliable, stretchy square chew that bridged this gap perfectly.
Debuting with just two standard flavours—Blackcurrant and Orange—the brand revolutionized the UK market, as the British public had never experienced a confection that offered such a concentrated punch of flavour combined with an addictively chewy texture. By the late 1960s, the candy had become a national sensation, prompting the Southport factory to run at maximum capacity while expanding the roster to include iconic favourites like Strawberry and Banana, which would go on to define the childhoods of millions of Brits.
The brand’s status as a quintessential piece of British pop culture was definitively locked in 1976 with the television debut of Chewie the Chewitsaurus, a lovable, Godzilla-like claymation dinosaur driven by an insatiable hunger for anything exceptionally chewy. Animated by the future Oscar winning Aardman Animation, the wildly popular UK ad campaigns featured Chewie comically munching his way through global landmarks like the Taj Mahal and the Empire State Building, before arriving on British soil to snack on local institutions like the Barrow-in-Furness Bus Depot. Nothing could stop the monster’s rampage until a frantic onlooker handed him a stick of Chewits, launching the legendary national catchphrase: “No fruit chew chews chewier.” This brilliant marketing gave the brand a distinct, cheeky British personality that established immense emotional equity with the public. As the decades progressed, Chewits proved its remarkable ability to adapt to shifting British cultural trends without losing its retro charm.
In 1989, the brand launched a limited-edition Ice Cream flavour that captured the public’s imagination so intensely it achieved cult status, eventually forcing a permanent reissue years later after thousands of nostalgic British fans launched an unprecedented social media petition on Bebo and Facebook. At the turn of the millennium, as ownership transitioned through the Finnish confectionery group Leaf, Chewits adapted to a new generation of teenagers by introducing the Xtreme sour range in 2000, alongside a smash-hit television campaign that featured Chewie roller-skating through traffic to the infectious rhythm of the modified dance anthem, “I like to Chewit, Chewit.” To meet the massive logistics and scaling demands of the modern global market, Chewits modernized its supply chain in the mid-2000s, transitioning production from its historic Southport birthplace to a state-of-the-art facility in Levice, Slovakia, before being acquired in 2012 by the Swedish confectionery powerhouse Cloetta AB.
Despite this international scaling under Cloetta’s massive distribution network, Chewits remains fiercely protective of its British identity and contemporary consumer values. The core recipe has been meticulously updated to align with modern dietary expectations in the UK, boasting a formulation that contains absolutely no artificial colours, no hydrogenated fats, uses real fruit juice concentrate, and is completely gelatine-free, making the classic chews entirely suitable for vegetarians.
Our fruity, flavour‑packed chews contain just 12 calories each and are available nationwide in stick packs, hanging bags and multi‑packs, including bold Xtreme flavours such as Sour Apple and Sour Cherry.
Chewits – unleash the taste adventure!
