Midget Gems (also known as Mini Gems) are chewy, firm

sweets Candy, also called sweets (British English) or lollies (Australian English, New Zealand English), is a confection that features sugar as a principal ingredient. The category, called '' sugar confectionery'', encompasses any sweet confection, i ...

similar to

wine gum Wine gums (or winegums) are chewy, firm pastille-type sweets similar to gumdrops without the sugar coating, originating from the United Kingdom. All brands have their own recipes containing various sweeteners, flavourings, and colourings. Wine ...

s but much harder. They are manufactured from

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...

and

glucose syrup Glucose syrup, also known as confectioner's glucose, is a syrup made from the hydrolysis of starch. Glucose is a sugar. Maize (corn) is commonly used as the source of the starch in the US, in which case the syrup is called "corn syrup", but glucos ...

corn starch Corn starch, maize starch, or cornflour (British English) is the starch derived from corn (maize) grain. The starch is obtained from the endosperm of the kernel. Corn starch is a common food ingredient, often used to thicken sauces or sou ...

and/or various other starches, animal

gelatin Gelatin or gelatine (from la, gelatus meaning "stiff" or "frozen") is a translucent, colorless, flavorless food ingredient, commonly derived from collagen taken from animal body parts. It is brittle when dry and rubbery when moist. It may also ...

, and various colourings and

flavouring A flavoring (or flavouring), also known as flavor (or flavour) or flavorant, is a food additive used to improve the taste or smell of food. It changes the perceptual impression of food as determined primarily by the chemoreceptors of the gustat ...

. Midget Gems were extremely popular in the

North of England Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North Country, or simply the North, is the northern area of England. It broadly corresponds to the former borders of Angle Northumbria, the Anglo-Scandinavian Kingdom of Jorvik, and the ...

and were one of The Lion Confectionery Company's biggest selling brands. In 1995 the company joined forces with Cadbury Trebor Bassett brand Maynard's to market the sweet across the country. At the time the sweet was re-branded under the Maynard's banner, the black Midget Gems were changed from

liquorice Liquorice (British English) or licorice (American English) ( ; also ) is the common name of ''Glycyrrhiza glabra'', a flowering plant of the bean family Fabaceae, from the root of which a sweet, aromatic flavouring can be extracted. The liqu ...

flavour to blackcurrant, but only in the bagged product – those sold loose, from jars and boxes, remain liquorice. Some of the newer bagged product now have reintroduced the liquorice flavour. A leading selling point for Midget Gems is that they were often sold loose from a jar or barrel. This made them inexpensive and helped bolster their popularity. Midget Gems are produced by a wide variety of other companies. Glisten Confectionery manufacture them under their Victoria brand, and in 2007 announced that they were removing all artificial colours and flavourings from the sweets. Many supermarkets and stores such as ''

Asda Asda Stores Ltd. () (often styled as ASDA) is a British supermarket chain. It is headquartered in Leeds, England. The company was founded in 1949 when the Asquith family merged their retail business with the Associated Dairies company of York ...

'', ''

Tesco Tesco plc () is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, England. In 2011 it was the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues and the ninth-largest in th ...

'',

Marks and Spencer Marks and Spencer Group plc (commonly abbreviated to M&S and colloquially known as Marks's or Marks & Sparks) is a major British multinational retailer with headquarters in Paddington, London that specialises in selling clothing, beauty, home ...

, and ''

Sainsbury's J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is the second largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom, with a 14.6% share of UK supermarket sales. Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company wa ...

'' manufacture their own versions. The sweet is so popular that

Liverpool Football Club Liverpool Football Club is a professional football club based in Liverpool, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. Founded in 1892, the club joined the Football League the following year and has ...

at one point sold their own branded tubs of Midget Gems, and the sweet frequently appears in lists of "Favourite sweets". Midget Gems are now sold in wide variety of colours and flavours, adding to the choices consumers have when purchasing them. In January 2022, Marks and Spencer announced they were to change the name of their sweet to ‘Mini gems’, after a campaign by

Liverpool Hope University , mottoeng=Hope to all who need it , established=1844 – Saint Katharine's College (as Warrington Training College)1856 – Notre Dame College (as Our Lady's Training College)1964 – Christ's College1979 – Liverpool Institute of Higher Edu ...

academic Dr Erin Pritchard who complained the word ‘

midget Midget (from ''midge'', a tiny biting insect) is a term for a person of unusually short stature that is considered by some to be pejorative due to its etymology. While not a medical term like "dwarfism", a medical condition with a number of ca ...

’, considering its origin in a Victorian freak show which exploited disabled people, was offensive to people suffering with the rare condition

Dwarfism Dwarfism is a condition wherein an organism is exceptionally small, and mostly occurs in the animal kingdom. In humans, it is sometimes defined as an adult height of less than , regardless of sex; the average adult height among people with dw ...

. The reaction on social media was mixed. Tesco and

Maynards Bassetts Maynards Bassetts is a UK brand of confectionery owned by Mondelez International, introduced in 2016. The brand was created to merge its existing Maynards and Bassett's brands, which the company came to own following its purchase of Cadbury in 20 ...

followed suit later that year.

References

British confectionery Candy {{confection-stub

See also

References