Sunkist Fruit Gems
Photo credit: Photo: Patafisik, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Sugar-dusted pectin jelly squares in individual wax-paper twists — lemon, orange, grapefruit, raspberry, lime — equally at home in a deli-counter jar, a grandparent's candy dish, and a synagogue. The recipe descends from Christopher's Fruit Gems, the signature candy of Southern California's oldest candy company. Thrown at bar and bat mitzvahs for decades: soft enough not to injure, festive enough to 'sweeten' the occasion, and a genuinely airborne childhood memory for a whole community.
Christopher's Fruit Gems were the signature candy of the Christopher Candy Company, Southern California's oldest candy maker, and they caught the attention of Ben Myerson, who had founded his own Los Angeles candy company in 1937. In 1955, Myerson bought Christopher Candy and got the Fruit Gems with it — along with a decades-long obsession with pectin, the natural gelling agent from fruit that Myerson had been experimenting with since the 1930s as a confectionery base.
A licensing deal with Sunkist Growers transformed the product's identity. The exact date is contested — sources place it between 1966 and 1974 — but whenever it happened, the Sunkist name was gold. From that point forward they were Sunkist Fruit Gems — and along the way they became the traditional candy showered on bar and bat mitzvah kids. Unlike hard candies, which ricochet and sting, or chocolate, which melts in the hand, a pectin jelly square is the ideal throw-candy: soft enough to be safe, festive enough to land like a blessing, a sweet send-off into adulthood delivered at velocity.
The candy stayed a Myerson family operation for decades — a staple of deli counters, candy dishes, and synagogue lobbies. In 2006, the family sold its manufacturing operations and trade-name assets to Jelly Belly Candy Company, in a deal announced in late October with Jelly Belly taking over on November 1. Under new ownership the flavor lineup was adjusted in 2012, then restored to the original assortment in 2023. Sunkist Fruit Gems are still made today and still go airborne at mitzvahs — the same candy across three owners and the better part of a century.
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