The best vegan sweets you can buy in the UK (top 6)
The idea of creating a guide about vegan sweets might seem a bit odd, as you'd assume that most sweets would be suitable for vegans. But that really isn't the case - in fact, if you look on the back of most sweet packets, you'd probably be shocked to find how many of them contain animal products within the ingredients, especially things like gelatine.
Similar to our guide about the best vegan biscuits, there are lots of sweets out there which are "accidentally vegan", which means they just happen to be suitable for vegans, rather than being made specifically for them. This includes sweets such as Skittles and Rowntree's Fruit Pastilles. We're not going to include sweets like that in this guide because the recipes are changed so often, there is no guarantee they'll continue to be suitable for vegans in the future.
With that said, let's get into our list of the best vegan sweets:
Jealous Sweets Berry Sours
It feels like we've included quite a few sour vegan sweets in this guide, but let's face it, sour sweets are the best! And these Berry Sours from the Jealous Sweets are up there with the best we tried for this guide - they're made from 100% plant-based ingredients and they're free from palm oil, artificial colours, and artificial flavours. We tried the Raspberry, Cherry, and Blackcurrant flavour sweets and they had a lovely zing to them, learn more and buy them here - hollandandbarrett.com
Candy Kittens
Described as "gourmet candy", we have to admit that we rolled our eyes a bit when we first saw Candy Kittens on the supermarket shelves. When we eventually tried them, we definitely understood what they meant by gourmet - these sweets are a cut above most of what we've tried, plus they're 100% vegan. We're big fans of these, learn more and buy them here - waitrose.com
Bon Bon's Gourmet vegan sweets
These vegan sweets from Bon Bon's are made using real fruit juice and without any gelatine, yet they still have a really lovely texture. You can buy a wide range of sweets from this brand, but the best we've tried are definitely these fizzy dummies, which remind us of the dummies you get from the Tangfastics Haribo bags. Learn more and buy these sweets here - dikeandson.co.uk
Biona organic sour snakes
We've featured the Biona brand loads of times because they're great, and they most recently appeared in our protein bread guide. Everything that this brand produces is totally organic and vegan, and we were a little surprised to see a packet of sour snake sweets from Biona as we didn't think that would be the sort of product they'd make. But these sour snakes are amazing - made using raw cane sugar and real fruit juices, they're free from gelatine and totally vegan yet still have a lovely squishy texture. Learn more and buy them here - hollandandbarrett.com
Vegebears
From the Just Whole Foods brand, these Vegebears are 100% vegan and very tasty. They've got a slightly sour taste but not too much, and we loved both the texture and the bear shape of the sweets. As well as containing no gelatine, they're also totally free from artificial colours, flavours, or sweeteners. And despite that, they won a 'Great Taste' award in 2021. Learn more and buy them here - justwholefoods.co.uk
Tasty Mates Peaches & Cream
These Peaches & Cream sweets from Tasty Mates are made with real fruit pulp and we'd definitely describe them as tasty. They're vegan but definitely have a creaminess, which the Tasty Mates team achieves by using a bespoke vanilla mix. The texture is great and we love that natural flavours and colouring are used, learn more and buy them here - amazon.co.uk
Free From Fellows Rhubarb & Custard sweets
We've included the Free From Fellows brand previously in our vegan marshmallows guide, and we were really impressed by those, but these sweets are even better. The taste is classic and takes us back to our childhood - they're a bit old school. They're also hard-boiled sweets which makes them perfect for sucking on. You might have noticed that they're also sugar free, and we featured them in our sugar free sweets guide. Don't worry about this, they still taste great! Learn more and buy them here - sainsburys.co.uk
Hopefully, this guide helps you to find some amazing vegan sweets to enjoy. Let us know if you've tried any of these or if you have any other recommendations for us to try (feel free to send some to us, we enjoyed the research for this guide). We have a similar guide about the best vegan white chocolate we've tried.
Finn H
Finn is the editor of You Well and has been writing about travel, health, and more for over 10 years.