Well, here’s a sentence I never thought I’d write: Haribo just recalled a batch of their candy because it apparently came pre-loaded with cannabis. Yes, that Haribo. The one with the smiling gold bears and commercials made for toddlers. Turns out, if you bought their Happy Cola F!ZZ in the Netherlands recently, there’s a non-zero chance you also bought an impromptu edible.
This isn’t some quirky accident like someone putting sugar in the salt jar. This involved actual cannabis—in candy marketed to children. Because that’s just the kind of “fun twist” we needed in 2025.
The whole fiasco unraveled after an entire family in the Netherlands got sick after eating the stuff. According to the NL Times, they ended up reporting dizziness and other symptoms that, under different circumstances, might be explained by “being alive in the Netherlands.” But no, this time it was the candy. Testing confirmed it: weed in the gummies.
The Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority, who have now earned their paycheck for the year, confirmed the cannabis contamination and said this “goes beyond simple health complaints.” You think?
They immediately called Haribo, who scrambled into PR damage control mode and issued a recall of 1,000-gram bags of Happy Cola F!ZZ with the production code L341-4002307906, expiring in January 2026. If you’re checking your pantry right now, don’t bother taking it back to the store. Haribo says send it directly to them, and they’ll refund you. (Let me guess, in the form of more gummies?)
To their credit, Haribo is cooperating with law enforcement, which is kind of the least they could do after accidentally turning their candy into a controlled substance.
“We want to know exactly how it got into the candy, and, of course, how the bags ended up in the store,” said Dutch police spokesperson Chantal Westerhoff, in what might be the most obvious statement since someone said “The Titanic seems to be listing.”
They’ve only found three affected bags so far, but that’s enough to sound the alarms. Especially since those bags made it all the way to store shelves without anyone noticing the candy might make your 8-year-old start asking deep questions about the meaning of gravity.
Haribo, in its official statement, said, “The safety of our consumers is our highest priority,” which is corporate-speak for “Please don’t sue us.” They also said it only affected that one product and only in the Netherlands. So if you’re chewing on some Gold-Bears in Ohio, you’re probably fine. Probably.
But let’s be real: How does cannabis just “accidentally” wind up in factory-sealed children’s candy? This isn’t like a mislabeled barcode or a flavor mix-up. This is “someone either royally screwed up or was trying to be funny and forgot they work in a candy factory” level stuff.
Whatever happened, Haribo’s got some explaining to do—and maybe some hiring to do too. Preferably people who can tell the difference between sugar and THC.