I Tried 10 Trader Joe's Gummy Candies And Ranked Them Worst To Best

Few things brings us back to childhood quite like a handful of gummy candies. The bright colors and unique shapes are designed to make them especially fun to eat. There's no shortage gummy candies them in convenience, candy, and grocery stores across the country, and it's no different at Trader Joe's. Along with its affordable prepared meals, uncanny fast food dupes, and official private-label hall-of-famers, Trader Joe's also offers a wide range of chewy, sour and sweet gummy candy — half-an-aisle's worth, in fact.

But just as in any other candy aisle, trying to decide can be a little overwhelming. Trader Joe's is always a good bet when it comes to snacks, and all those colorful, yummy-sounding options might make it too much to handle. To help make the choice a little easier for you — and because I've always had a particular love for sour candy and gummies — I headed to my local Trader Joe's to taste every gummy candy option I could find and rank them from worst to best. So if you need a little help navigating these gelatinous sweets or simply want to know if your favorite gummy made the cut, let's get into it.

Jelly candy can be hit or miss. Typically, I find the consistency too sticky and melty to savor the flavor. The best jelly candy, in my opinion, is thinly sliced and hardened enough on the outside to hold its shape. Equally important is its sugar coating — it should be evenly distributed, providing an essential contrasting texture to the jellies themselves.

Unfortunately, Trader Joe's Fruity Jellies are far too mushy. Despite being kettle-cooked, they don't hold their shape well at all, and the sparse, unexceptional granulated sugar they're coated in feels like an afterthought; again, that sugar is vital! Think about it: Sour Patch Kids would just be Swedish Fish without their sugar coating. Perhaps toughest of all, though, is the taste. These Trader Joe's jellies come in six different flavors, but every one has a similar, licorice-esque taste when you first bite into it. Not ideal. Overall, they were definitely the worst gummies of the bunch.

My favorite thing about Trader Joe's is its willingness to think outside the box with certain products. The store succeeds when it embraces tweaks on old ideas and new combinations of flavors, but some of its more transparent duplicates of other brands' products often disappoint.

Such is the case with Trader Joe's Scandinavian Swimmers. The name is a phrase synonymous with Swedish Fish (invented by a Swedish company called Malaco). While I will admit that the Trader Joe's version has better shapes (I love a seahorse), Scandinavian Swimmers are inferior to the original in every other way. Swedish Fish are made with cornstarch instead of gelatin, which is why they taste different from your average gummy worm. Scandinavian Swimmers are also made with cornstarch, but Trader Joe's has not cracked the recipe — its version of the candy almost tastes like it's been fermented. I don't know why they've been a Trader Joe's staple for so long; to me, they're a total bust. 

Another product that's essentially just a dupe of an existing, branded item is Trader Joe's Gaggle of Gummy Candy. Haribo has made a lot of progress in the United States over the past couple decades, and one of its famed products is Starmix, which seems to be a random mix of different gummies together in one bag.

Trader Joe's Gaggle of Gummy Candy is similar to Haribo's Starmix, except many of the gummies in the gaggle are exclusive to the pack. Trader Joe's doesn't sell bags of just cola-flavored (and shaped) gummies or candy replicas of sunny-side-up eggs; instead, they're mixed together and thrown in with some mini gummy bears, cherry-shaped (and flavored) gummies, and a small few ombré octopuses, but my pack only had two of those in the whole bag.

The gummy bears are the same as the ones sold in TJ's mini packs, but because they're so small they don't take up much space in the mix. The cherry candies are okay, but they are still a less-vibrant, subpar dupe of the Haribo cherry candies which offer a particularly satisfying chewiness that's lacking in the rest of the Gaggle of Gummies. The worst part about the mix is that the gummies just don't work when eaten together. Even if someone takes the time to sort each type, they've all been mixed up for so long that they all smell and taste a little bit like every other gummy in the bag. 

Trader Joe's Strawberry Fields Gummy Candy has the nicest packaging of all TJ's gummies. A pretty, slightly swooping font presents the name of the candy on the bag, surrounded by pale green and vines of painted strawberries. All of this harmonizes well with the gummies themselves, which are green and light red and visible through a little window on the bag. These candies come in two sizes, larger and smaller strawberries, and are covered in sour sugar. The sugar on these gummies is better applied and distributed than that of the fruit jellies, and provides a satisfying, scratchy tartness.

The gummies themselves are intensely strawberry-flavored, and the lack of variety here is part of why these aren't ranked higher. They're meant for people who love strawberries and strawberry-flavored candy, which automatically means their appeal is  more narrow. Personally, the intense flavor of these gummies is a little too strong for me, but they could easily be another person's favorite. Without their tart coating, these would be difficult to eat in a handful, but the sourness of the sugar does juxtapose well with the sweetness of the strawberry flavor.

I have never been a fan of cinnamon-flavored candy or gum, so I knew these gummies weren't going to be a favorite of mine, but to partially account for that I had a few cinnamon lovers try them as well. Trader Joe's Cinna-Dragons have a precise cinnamon flavor, one that's only a bit less intense than that of Red Hots, one of the most popular cinnamon-flavored candies available. They have a biting, refreshing cinnamon flavor, but flavor isn't the only factor at play.

The idea of a cinnamon-flavored gummy is not particularly appealing to me (nor to the fans of cinnamon candy I had try these). Cinnamon feels more suited to a chocolate bar or a hard candy, and I can confirm that it was disconcerting to taste cinnamon while chewing gummy candy. It won't work for everyone, but like the Strawberry Fields gummies above, these dragons will likely be a favorite of a particular subset of Trader Joe's customers.

Overall, it didn't take as long as I thought it would to get over the combination of gumminess and cinnamon, and I also found myself appreciating the branding and its dark red color. It's smart that these come in a resealable bag, because there's no way anyone could eat more than five in one sitting. They may have only come in sixth, but these gummies surprised me the most of all of the ones I tried.

Sometimes the best thing about gummies is just that they're colorful and fun, and Trader Joe's Beach Day! Gummy Candy checks both boxes. Each gummy is made with a gradient fade of multiple colors and flavors, and the beach-themed shapes are both enjoyable and noticeably detailed. I always appreciate the little things, like tiny little bumps on a starfish gummy or the swirling twist at the top of shell-shaped gummies, both of which are an indication that someone approached this product design thoughtfully. 

Flavor-wise, these gummies are very standard. They have a standard, gelatinous consistency and come in the right size and amount. For folks who are picky about flavors, these gummies will be tough, as they're all made with random combinations of colors and flavors and aren't easily sortable. It's unlikely you'd be able to eat around a flavor note you don't like, so these are definitely the kind of gummies you want to get only if you're a big fan of gummies in general. Overall I'd say these are the best ones for kids — super fun to look at, easy to eat in handfuls, and unified around a seasonal theme.

Trader Joe's Fruity Gummy Candies taste more like fruit snacks than traditional gummies. There's not much of a difference between the two (candy gummies and fruit snacks), but fruit snacks do tend to be more dense, less stretchy, and more fruit-forward. TJ's Fruity Gummy Candies are bigger than most fruit snacks, but otherwise fit the bill, coming in a mix of concentrated, fruit flavors, including pineapple, mango, grapefruit, watermelon, and blueberry. I enjoyed that these have a little more substance to them than some of the other gummies. It made them easier to consider and savor.

Watermelon is probably the most typical of the above flavors, and it happens to be the best in this bunch. The bag was filled with far more mango gummies than any of the others, and unfortunately I'm not a huge fan of mango. That said, it is a popular, under-utilized fruit and it's nice to see gummies infused with less-common flavors. The pineapple was interesting, but not better than a Haribo pineapple gummy bear, and the blueberry was quite good. The only flavor that didn't really work was the grapefruit — ultimately it's just too bitter a citrus to flavor candy. As a whole, though, this bag was certainly worthy of a top five slot.

Sour Confetti Chews are fun and not quite like anything I've tried before. They're opaque and much harder than any of the other gummies at Trader Joe's, as well as cemented in their little cylinder shape. I thought they might be too chewy, but they were actually so hardened that they were less chewy than any of the others. Like some other TJ's gummy candies, these are coated in sour sugar for a little extra bite, but the sugar feels far less essential to their taste (though it's a nice touch!). 

These candies also come in several different flavors but they're not listed prominently on the front the packaging, probably because they all take the same shape and are only differentiated by desaturated, pastel tones. If you can tell the difference between the colors, the light green, apple-flavored ones are the best. I was surprised by how distinct the flavors are from each other considering that it's a bit difficult to distinguish between them, but these are fairly small gummies and are likely intended to be eaten in small handfuls. I recommend these to anyone who enjoys a fruity, gummy candy — don't let their lack of translucence scare you!

The idea of making gummy bears smaller isn't necessarily new, and it's also not exactly necessary — after all,  gummy bears are already pretty small even when they're "normal-sized." But these little bears were the second-best Trader Joe's gummies I tried. I wouldn't be surprised if the fact that they're organic has something to do with it — the clarity of flavor and chew consistency is excellent. They might be better overall than Haribo gummy bears. 

The gummy bears' small size is likely the reason the packaging is small, but selling smaller packs of gummy bears at any size is a good idea. Gummy lovers don't have a lot of tiny options — a neat row of Starbursts is so much easier to sell at the register — but these are perfect. The packaging design (primary colors with a 'gummy bears in space' theme) and the fact that they're meant to be opened vertically are both nice design touches. They're a great little treat to pick up for a road trip or a movie night at home, and they're so tiny they'd make a great topping for an ice cream sundae bar.

I wasn't really surprised that my favorite gummies from Trader Joe's, by far, are the Sour Strawberry Candy Belts. Unlike the Strawberry Fields gummies, the belts have a strawberry flavoring with an intensity more akin to Sour Patch Kids — the strawberry flavor is there and you can taste it, but the primary flavor of the treat is just a satisfying slide from tart to sweet. These belts are more sour than any of the other gummies on our list— which means some people will love them and some people will pucker up unpleasantly— but ultimately I think gummies are best when they're more sour than sweet. 

The shape of these candies is a big part of why they're great, too. It's just fun to eat a thin, bendy slat of chewy, candy goodness — it almost feels like being a kid with a Fruit by the Foot, where the candy is a treat but also a bit of a toy. These sour belts come in a little plastic box, luckily, because it would definitely make someone sick to eat all of them in one sitting, and there's a generous heap of them to last anyone quite awhile. We'd probably recommend these gummies to all the gummy lovers, and I'll certainly be coming home from my next Trader Joe's run with an extra, sweet treat!

After gathering all of the different gummy candies for sale at Trader Joe's, I brought them home for tasting. The biggest factors I focused on were texture and flavor. Since candy is supposed to be a fun treat, I also considered gummy shapes, colors, and packaging when formulating my ranking. Lastly, I set aside the gummies for a while and returned to them, specifically to note which products I was most excited to try again and which products I wanted to avoid.

Most of the products included multiple flavors of the same gummy, so I tried each individual flavor on its own where necessary. Some of the gummies were straightforward dupes of other branded products, so I made sure to test those against the original version of what they seemed to be copying (for example, Swedish Fish alongside the Scandinavian Swimmers). I also had one or two other people try each gummy as well to account for any personal preferences/biases.