Distinctive Liquorice Wholesale Sweets From Italy

If you sell confectionery, there are some excellent online companies that have a large selection of wholesale sweets, including a wide range of fine chocolate. The best companies carefully choose their suppliers from a range of countries, offering top quality products that are also value for money.

For independent retailers, Italian liquorice can be distinctive addition to the usual ranges that attract interest from customers.

Nostalgic sweet market

The revived interest in retro sweets is growing faster than other types of confectionery, according to the Financial Times and The Guardian. There is a real interest in the independent sweet shop with shelves of jars full of different coloured, flavoured and shaped sweets, so different to the ubiquitous choice on supermarket shelves. Liquorice, in particular, has enjoyed a revival here in the UK with the general interest and demand for nostalgic sweets. Liquorice now accounts for 8% of the overall sweet market, and is growing. One wholesale sweets brand, Amarelli, is famous all over the world for their high quality liquorice.

Natural sweetness

The Amarelli family have been making liquorice for over three centuries in Calabria, Southern Italy, where the plant grows exceptionally well. Before it was made into a sweet, it had a long history as a medicine. Culpepper, a famous English herbalist, wrote in 1649, that, [liquorice] distilled in rosewater, with some gum tragacanth, was a fine medicine for hoarseness; he also noted how sweet the juice from the root was. The Amarelli family started making liquorice in 1731, and they still use locally grown plants because of their exceptional flavour; their high quality wholesale sweets are sold all over the world.

Traditional crafts and new technology

Harvesting the liquorice is done firstly by machines, but then the roots are pulled from the ground by hand – to reduce the chance of damage. Although the process of extracting has not changed over many years, the actual way in which is is done has. A special computerised machine ensures that the temperature is precisely maintained, so no taste is lost during extraction of the juice. Then, in order for the liquorice to attain its beautiful rich black colour, it needs to be manually mixed outside. The reaction of the liquorice to oxygen, called the concentration phase, creates the black colouring, and if this were done inside the liquorice would be merely brown.

Amarelli are innovative in their packaging as well, being the very first to use metal boxes for liquorice. This is the best way to preserve the liquorice and the distinctive and attractive boxes are also reusable or recyclable. The designs on these boxes are quite charming and satisfy the customers’ desire for retro as well being filled with delicious sweets. The company, although still traditional, are also renowned as being very creative with their wholesale sweets, and the products range from the very nostalgic liquorice root to candy covered liquorice that looks like pretty pebbles.