Hard Candy & Lollipops (Boiled Sweets, Wrapped & Bulk)

Boiled sweets and lollipops, twist-wrapped or flow-wrapped, in bags, jars and display boxes

Hard candy is a glass: sucrose and glucose syrup cooked to a low moisture and cooled before it can crystallise, with the glucose syrup there as the doctoring agent that holds the sucrose back from graining. A published review of hard candy production puts the cooking range for sucrose-based boiled sweets at 135-160 °C, sugar-free isomalt candy at about 160 °C, and the final moisture at 2-3%, with anything above 5% too soft to keep its texture. Stored above its glass transition temperature, in heat or humidity, a hard candy goes sticky or grains, and that is why buyers ask about the wrapper, the carton and the route as much as the recipe. Lollipops are the same cooked mass on a stick, commonly 8 g to 25 g, sometimes with a bubble gum or chewy centre. Everything in this spoke is HS 1704.90, and UN Comtrade 2024 export declarations under that line total USD 16.55 billion and about 4.28 million MT across 133 reporters, a figure that covers all non-cocoa sugar confectionery except chewing gum: Germany USD 2.03 billion and 418,200 MT, China USD 1.65 billion and 526,300 MT, Mexico USD 1.22 billion and 342,400 MT, the Netherlands USD 1.00 billion, Belgium USD 999 million, Spain USD 931 million, Türkiye USD 859 million and 307,300 MT, Poland USD 755 million, India USD 203 million and 170,600 MT, Brazil USD 197 million, Indonesia USD 185 million, Thailand USD 180 million, Malaysia USD 100 million, Egypt USD 61 million and Pakistan USD 60 million. The UAE works as a re-export hub through distributors at Jebel Ali; its 2024 declarations are not in the Comtrade preview.

The buyer is an importer-distributor, a wholesaler, a cash-and-carry or a supermarket chain's private-label desk, and the offer is a price per carton for a stated piece weight, wrap, pack and label. CBIL is a commodity brokerage company and brokers generic hard candy and lollipops from factories in China, Türkiye, Spain, Germany, Poland, Mexico, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Egypt and Pakistan and from UAE re-exporters, against the competent-authority health certificate, the factory's certificate of analysis, a certificate of origin, a halal certificate from a body the destination accepts, and label artwork checked before printing. Minimum orders are set per product by the factory: published terms run from low or no minimum on an Indian maker's stock private-label packaging, through 4-6 MT or 30,000-60,000 pieces per product at a Chinese OEM factory, to one or two 40-ft containers per programme on European private-label programmes, and several products are often combined into one container. Labels are written for the market: the EU requires "may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children" on food coloured with E110, E104, E122, E129, E102 or E124 (Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008, Annex V), titanium dioxide (E171) has not been permitted in EU food since 2022, Gulf labels follow GSO 9 with Arabic text and printed production and expiry dates, and US labels follow 21 CFR 101 with batch-certified FD&C colours, the nine major allergens including sesame, and no FD&C Red No. 3 in food from 15 January 2027. Cartons move floor-loaded or palletised in 20-ft or 40-ft dry containers on FOB, CFR and CIF terms. Send the piece type and weight, wrap, pack, carton count, label market and discharge port, and the enquiry is screened and worked against it.

Excluded origins are not offered, including product re-exported, blended or re-processed through a third country. Every lot moves with a certificate of origin naming the producing plant, mine or grower country, and nothing is quoted before the seller and loading point are known.