Open a tin of our mixed fruit sweets and you'll be struck by how bright the various colours are under the dusting of powdered sugar. Many people worry about how these colours are manufacturered so we thought we'd explain.

Simpkins our suppliers have been producing these sweets since the 1920's, they only use natural colours and flavourings.

Regulations were introduced in the 1960's with each one given an E (for Europe) prefix but newspaper reports about allergies and reactions painted them all in a bad light - this isn't true! 

So what do the numbers mean? 

Let's take a look at the bottom label of our tins:-

E330 - Citric Acid - A colourless compound which is found in most citrus fruits, first discovered in 1784 and used widely since then.

E163 - Anthocyanins - This is a red or bluish shade which is found in plants, usually extracted from grape skins or red cabbage.

E160c - Capsanthin - Another red shade which is also known as Paprika Extract and comes from red peppers.

E141 - Chlorophylls - The green colour which naturally occurs in all plants, usually obtained from things like nettles or spinach.

E100 - Curcumin - Otherwise known as turmeric, a yellow flowered plant which is part of the ginger family. Most people know it from savory dishes like curry.

Hopefully this has explained how the sweets gain their wonderful colours and also re-assure our customers that we only sell products which are natural as well as very tasty!