Candy Man

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Candies are usually associated with children and childhood, and, by the time people reach adulthood, they would have "graduated" to something else.  That is perhaps one reason why they might seem awkwark candidates to be given sugar substitutes. But the ARE eaten by adults, too, and so this is a product category to fill.

“The library is like a candy store where everything is free,” writes American novelist Jamie. - [Source] If anything, his compatriot, poet Ogden Nash, is only more emphatic: “Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.” (Ogden Nash in Hard Lines). - [Source]

Candy,  perhaps even more than our other products, is sweet and associated with sugar, so that it would be the last thing to be associated with diabetics. That is perhaps the reason why candies are not among the major products associated with diabetics, and why such sugar-free products are not widely known. But given the attractiveness of sweet things, and the presence of sugar substitutes, sugar-free candies breaking into the market would only be a matter of time.

Sugar-free Candies

Which brings us to our products. Ricola Swiss-made sugar-free lozenges come in elderflowers, spearmint, blackcurrant,  lemon, lemon mint, eucalyptus, cranberry. The product available in the Philippines comes in 45-gram boxes. There is new, smaller packaging, a resealable envelope weighing 15 grams and containing six pieces.

Then, there is Fisherman's Friend lozenges. It comes in 25-gram packs, and sugar-free flavors include lemon, mint and cherry.

Also available locally are Wrigley's sugarfree mints which come in peppermint, spearmint and winter frost, and come in hinged aluminum boxes (the entire package weighing 23.8 grams), each containing 25 mints (a new pack, a plastic package, has 20 mints and weighs 12.4 grams).

Mentos sugarfree mints are packaged like Wrigley's mints, but come in larger boxes containing 50 mints (although the weight is not indicated), and come in two flavors, spearmint (with green tea extract) and peppermint, both with green tea extract. Smints are also in similar-sized aluminum boxes, in peppermint and spearmint.

A third brand of sugar-free candies, the menthol-flavored Bonlite, used to be common in certain convenience stores, but went out of stock in the past two years, leaving a blank which has not yet been filled.