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A global shortage of Swedish sweets, all thanks to a viral TikTok video? Stranger things have happened.
But that’s exactly what happened earlier this year, when TikTok influencer Marygrace Graves showed followers the sweets she picked up during her weekly visit to BonBon, a Swedish pastry shop in New York.
“These are strawberry calamari. This is the first time I’ve had them, they’re delicious,” Graves told her followers in a January video, as if to let them in on a secret.
Well, the secret is out — and other TikTok users have started making their own videos about the Swedish candy, resulting in millions of posts, a viral internet phenomenon, and an ongoing global shortage of the country’s prized candy.
A New York influencer’s viral TikTok sparked a Swedish candy craze, but a sudden global surge in demand has Canadian candy sellers scrambling to get enough stock to fill orders.
Graves’ viral image from the original video included some candies that were foamy and others that made her feel like her teeth were going to break, she said. Some were bizarrely shaped, including a rat’s rubber she held by her tail; and many were uniquely flavored, like the tart raspberry lemon gummy she approved of and the grapefruit candy she said made her nauseous.
All are imported from Sweden, a country known for producing high-quality sweets.
What makes Swedish sweets stand out is that they rely on unusual shapes and flavors, and away from the additives typically found in North American sweets, says Michelina Jassal, owner of Swedish confectionery Karameller in Vancouver.
“No GMOs, no corn syrup, usually (fewer) ingredients than regular candy you’ll find in the grocery store,” Jassal said of the Scandinavian sweets. “You don’t have that sick (feeling) in your stomach that you sometimes get with conventional sweets.”
The shortage has left Canadian importers scrambling to find supplies.
Jessica Borchiver, who runs the online Swedish candy store Sukker Baby from her home in Toronto, said an increasingly eager (and increasingly American) clientele has been urging her to restock a particularly sought-after brand: Bubs Godis.
What was previously a stable business for Borchiver skyrocketed overnight. But competing on Bubs “tipped everything over the edge,” she said. – Everyone who was anyone wanted to get hold of him.
Swedish candy manufacturers give preference to Nordic customers
Bubs Godis is one of the largest Swedish companies for the production of sweets. As demand skyrocketed due to its sudden virality, it was forced to stop accepting new international clients, a policy that has been in place since late December. The company was already running low on supplies in the summer months, when Sweden began its annual six-week vacation at the factory.
Any company would be pleased to see a surge in international interest. But the creators of Bubs decided to take care of their people first.
“We’ve had long relationships with our customers in Sweden and the rest of the Nordics,” said Niclas Arnelin, director of international expansion at Orkla, the Swedish food and snack corporation that owns Bubs. “And we have to prioritize them right now.”
They could also be their best customers – Swedes are notorious sweet tooths, eating up to 16 kilograms of sweets each year, according to a spokesman for Business Swedish, a government-owned and business-owned organization that promotes Swedish exports.
The country has a long tradition of the so-called Saturday candyor “Saturday sweets”, in which families can be loaded with sweets. The custom originated from a study by medical researchers in the 1950s who found that the nation’s dental health would improve if they limited their candy intake to one day a week.
Stockholm resident Linda Rose remembers when the custom became popular. With her own children, she held a similar ritual on Fridays.
But if there is a global shortage currently affecting the sweet tooth community, the Swedes have been spared the pain.
“There is no shortage here,” she said. “None at all.”
