Let’s be honest. Does anyone like the green
Gummi Bears? Or, for that matter, the green
jelly beans or Lifesaver-brand lifesavers?
OK, I know my audience well enough to know that
a few of you probably do like them — a
little. Or will say you do because
you’re ... well, you don’t want me to get
away with anything. But even among those folks, truly:
Have they ever in their lives said, "Oh!
Save me a green one!" ... or, "Why
don’t they put more GREEN ones in here?"
... or, "You bum! You took the last green
one!"
I have lived a long time. I have never heard any
of these statements. (And if you were being
honest with me, you would admit it: You never
have, either.)
Even the yellow and orange ones win no popularity
contests — it is the red ones people go for
most enthusiastically, and the white vanilla ones
(which it turns out are actually pineapple) —
which leads one to wonder: What’s the deal?
Surely the Gummi Bear people know this. Why don’t
they nix the greenies? Or, at least, radically alter
the mix? (Or reformulate the green ones as kiwi,
which would actually taste quite good?)
Could it be a nutrition thing? Balanced diets and
all that? I doubt it. Lime-juice-dyed corn syrup
can’t be all that different nutritionally from
cherry-juice-dyed corn syrup.
Could it be cost? Could red Gummi Bears possibly
be more expensive to breed than green and yellow
ones? Get real.
I called the Gummi Bear people. Or tried to. It
seems there are no Gummi Bear people, as such. As
the woman I reached at Promotion in Motion, Inc.
explained, "Anyone can make Gummi Bears."
Just not the Care Bear brand Gummi Bears that
Promotion in Motion makes under license to the
Care Bear people. So different Gummi Bear makers
may have different philosophies. Is there an
association of Gummi Bear manufacturers?
No, says Mike Rosenberg, the affable president of
Promotion in Motion. In Mike I had a man who makes
literally billions of gummis each year — perhaps
15% to 20% of the U.S. gummi market — and who
claims that his own children, aged 6 and 7, love
the green ones. (The nearly-two-year-old doesn’t
eat them yet.) I am skeptical of this. Perhaps they
are merely pretending to win his approval.
Gummi, Mike explains, is German for rubber.
Gummi Bears seem to have originated in Germany. But not,
he believes, with the German outfit that claims to
have invented them. Carbon-dating (well, or
something) shows the existence of gummis predating
the existence of that boastful company.
I researched a couple of seemingly identical Promotion
in Motion, Inc. 3.5-ounce boxes of Care
Bear brand Gummi Bears and discovered the distribution
to be as follows:
| Color |
Box 1 |
Box 2 |
| Red |
5 |
7 |
| Yellow |
8 |
10 |
| White |
10 |
8 |
| Pink |
11 |
6 |
| Green |
4 |
10 |
| Orange |
8 |
7 |
Note that Box 2 appeared to have two more bears
than Box 1 — 48 versus 46 — and that
it was really the luck of the draw. Wherein may
lie much of the plan for and success of the Gummi
Bear. It’s a gummi gamble. You don’t
know just what you’ll get. You could get lucky!
No gain without pain, so they stick the green ones
in there to make the red ones seem all the more
desirable. As crestfallen as you are to grab a
green one, well, that’s how much your heart warms
with the special friendship of good fortune when
... it’s red!
(Pink was not something I expected. Upon
experimentation, pink appears to be strawberry,
while red is cherry. Why not black licorice?
It must be that black is not a pretty, kid-friendly
color.)
Mike Rosenberg disclaims any such plan. Six
flavors, six nozzles filling molds, some blending,
heating, cooling, a shiny non-stick agent like
beeswax, mixed in a drum ... on average, each flavor
gets equal weight.
Which is why there are so many leftover green Gummi
Bears in the world.
And here’s another thing. What about those
salt shaker/pepper shaker twin paks? What kind of
ratio is that? Is there a family in America that
has ever run out of the salt at more or less the
same time as the pepper? Quite clearly not: We are
all left with nearly full peppers, vainly searching
the supermarket shelves for a salt-salt twin pak to
even the score. (Not to say, of course, that I
approve of this very non-bulk form of purchasing to
begin with. But we all slip occasionally.)
Ratios are wrong, supplies are out of kilter.
But this is America, and sooner or later someone
will come up with a way to profit from these
inefficiencies. I sense a new kind of
green-gummi-bear-pepper composite paving our roads
one day or caulking our seams. In every crisis
lies opportunity.
