Meet HARIBO Squishiez: Bubblegum Stuff’s New Squishy Toy Range

We have made plenty of squishy toys in our time. Bananas. Udders. Pimples. The sort of objects that make perfect sense once you stop asking sensible questions.

But this is a first, and it is a big one.

Meet HARIBO Squishiez, our brand-new squishy toy range created under licence from HARIBO.

Six iconic sweets have been supersized, squishified and turned into palm-sized sensory toys: Goldbear, Fried Egg, Happy Cola, Love Heart, Friendship Ring and Happy Cherries.

They are officially on sale now. Or, more accurately, some are on sale now. At the time of writing, Fried Egg, Happy Cola and Love Heart have already sold out on our website.

Apparently, launching six products and immediately losing half of them to rampant demand is what the experts call “a nice problem to have”.

We call it mild panic with excellent branding.

A sweet idea that made far too much sense

Squishy sweets becoming squishy toys. That is the idea.

No 86-slide strategy deck. No lengthy explanation involving the word “synergy”. Just a product concept that felt immediately right.

HARIBO sweets are colourful, tactile and instantly recognisable. Squishy toys are having a huge moment with younger consumers, collectors, fidgeters and adults who would rather not discuss why they are quietly crushing a Fried Egg during a Teams call.

Put the two together and you get a food-shaped squishy toy range with nostalgia, sensory satisfaction and serious shelf appeal built in.

Simple, right?

Well, yes. Apart from the best part of a year spent on scoping, development, design iterations, material testing, sample testing, reviews, approvals, more testing and more approvals.

As Courtney explained in Mojo Nation’s interview about the development of HARIBO Squishiez, HARIBO shared the technical specifications for each sweet so we could recreate the shapes, colours, gradients and translucency as faithfully as possible.

Then all we had to do was scale them up and make them squishy. Piece of cake. A cake that took months and required approximately 900 rounds of “can we make the red slightly more HARIBO red?”

Joking aside, we are genuinely grateful for the care HARIBO brought to the process. Their standards pushed us to get every detail right.

The Fried Egg was particularly challenging, with the yolk and white needing to feel distinct despite being made from the same material. That level of scrutiny is exactly why the finished range looks and feels like supersized HARIBO, not six generic blobs wearing famous logos.

They just squish differently

We have been making squishies for close to a decade, so this is not our first rodeo. It is, however, our first rodeo featuring a Happy Cola.

Each HARIBO Squishiez design combines a soft plastic outer layer with a maltose syrup filling. That creates our two-stage squish: firmer when you first squeeze, then softer as the toy gives way in your hand.

They are properly weighted, pleasingly tactile and ideal for restless hands, idle moments, waiting around or a quick sensory reset.

They also look good enough to eat. Please do not. We cannot believe we have to say that either.

The range draws on the shapes people know from Starmix, the UK’s favourite HARIBO product, with Happy Cherries joining the party because they are equally iconic and six is objectively better than five.

That mix of designs gives retailers six distinct silhouettes rather than one shape in different colours, while fans get a recognisable HARIBO squishy toy that taps into cinema trips, road journeys, pocket-money sweets and the time-honoured tradition of arguing over who gets the last Fried Egg.

Autumn Fair went slightly bonkers

We gave HARIBO Squishiez their first major trade-show outing at Autumn Fair, where the reaction was immediate.

Our Sales Manager Mikella Young-Alfonzo called it our best trade show ever, thanking everyone who helped make the week such a success before announcing that she was ready for a nap. A balanced and accurate trade-show debrief.

The stand buzz mattered because it was not just polite interest. Buyers understood the product at a glance, wanted to pick the range up and could see how the HARIBO name, recognisable forms and booming squishy toy trend worked together.

Since stock landed, retailers have been sharing their own reactions too, including Funky Fidgets Shop and SquishyNZ. It turns out putting giant HARIBO sweets into the hands of people who sell squishies is quite an effective marketing strategy.

The licensing industry noticed as well.

In its Autumn Fair review, Licensing Source highlighted Bubblegum Stuff as a new company joining the licensing world, praising the range for being authentically HARIBO, tapping into a flourishing trend and holding appeal across gift, toy, travel, tourism and grocery retail.

That is a lot of sectors for six things you can squeeze with one hand.

Then the press tried to buy the display

Retailers were only the beginning. When Playtime PR showcased the collection for us at the Christmas Press Show, HARIBO Squishiez generated what they described as tons of press interest.

How much interest? One visitor tried to buy a Squishiez on the spot. We are told that was a show first. There are more sophisticated ways to measure product appeal, but “attempted purchase of exhibition sample” feels fairly conclusive.

Influencers and squishy creators have been equally keen to get their hands on the range.

That makes sense. These are bright, tactile, instantly recognisable squishy fidget toys with a satisfying two-stage squeeze and a global sweet brand attached. They are not exactly camera-shy.

The result is a rare three-way agreement between retailers, consumers and content creators. Everyone wants to squish them. Some people want to collect them. A worrying number want to lick them.

Again, please do not.

Our first licensed range, but hopefully not our last

Working with HARIBO has been a huge opportunity for our small independent business.

We are very grateful that a globally loved brand trusted us with its sweets and allowed us to turn them into something new, tactile and unmistakably Bubblegum.

The collaboration has also taught us plenty, including patience, precision and the astonishing number of meetings a Fried Egg can generate.

Most importantly, it has produced a squishy toy range that feels natural rather than forced. HARIBO brought decades of recognition, nostalgia and meticulous brand care.

We brought years of squishy development, product storytelling and an inability to leave a perfectly respectable category alone.

The response so far suggests the combination works.

HARIBO Squishiez are available now for £9.99 each, subject to the small matter of people buying them faster than we can keep them in stock.

Explore all six designs, check current availability and choose your favourite on the HARIBO Squishiez landing page.

Then squish responsibly.