The Weirdly Wet Trader Joe's Candy Mix I'll Never Buy Again

For a store with limited SKUs, Trader Joe's offers an impressive selection of candy. It's more well-known for its chocolate bars (which we ranked worst to best), including the fan-favorite peanut butter cups and Pound Plus bars, but its gummy candies are also noteworthy. Between the Super Sour Scandinavian Swimmers and licorice twists is where I found what I thought would be my newest gummy candy obsession: A Gaggle of Gummy Candy. 

Trader Joe's is known for its spinoffs on other brands' signature products (like its knock-off Pirate's Booty — aka the World's Puffiest White Cheddar Corn Puffs), so I had reason to suspect that this sugary, gummy medley was intended as a play on one of my all-time favorite gummy candy mixes: Haribo Starmix. Haribo is the crème de la crème of gummy candies for me because its texture is toothsome — meaning your jaw has to do a bit of work, which slows down your eating pace and causes you to come back for more — and its candies are boldly flavored.

So, it's fair to say that I had high standards when I bought the reasonably priced bag of A Gaggle of Gummy Candy, which boasted cherries, massive octopi, cola bottles, eggs, and more. The first thing I noticed was the candy pieces were weirdly moist and wet — like the package had been sitting out on a warm day and moisture had seeped inside, making the candies sticky and soft. The flavors all blended together and lacked the delicious chewiness I'd come to expect from gummy candies as a whole. It was unpleasant, and while I can usually stomach gummy candies in any and all forms, I could only eat a few pieces before I had to throw A Gaggle of Gummies in the trash.

Naturally, I had to do some digging to see what the public consensus was about this candy that I had very clearly disliked. When it was released, there was a fair amount of positive press on Reddit forums, with one user even saying that the octopi tasted like Baja Blast (which is my favorite of Mountain Dew's soda flavors, though I can't exactly say that's what the sad, sticky octopi tasted like). One user preferred them as an alternative to Haribo, noting that the Trader Joe's version was less tough, while others related their texture more to Albanese gummy bears. 

Now, I've tasted an array of gummy bear brands before, and I don't even think that Albanese and Trader Joe's are on the same plane. Trader Joe's gummy candies weren't as mushy and mealy as the Albanese gummy bears that I remember eating, but at least Albanese had some sort of flavor direction. The fruity sweetness, cola bottles, and faux cherry essence all steeped together in the Trader Joe's mix — which kind of defeats the purpose of having a bag of different gummy candies in the first place. There needs to be some sort of flavor and textural diversity to mix things up. 

As a whole, I was surprised to see that the sentiment about Trader Joe's gummies was overall positive, considering my perception was vehemently negative. I guess the internet and I can agree to disagree on this one.