Ferrara scored a top industry honour at the 2026 Sweets & Snacks Expo in Las Vegas, with its Brach's Crunchy Chewy Jelly Beans awarded Most Innovative New Product in the Seasonal Category by the National Confectioners Association — signalling the Chicago-based confectionery group's continued push to premiumise its holiday candy portfolio.
The recognition centres on a dual-texture format that pairs a hard candy shell with a soft gummy centre, a structural departure from the conventional jellybean that Ferrara is positioning as a direct response to consumer demand for more complex eating experiences in the seasonal aisle. Bold fruit flavours round out the product profile. Ferrara did not disclose pricing or projected sales volumes for the line.
The award carries competitive weight in a crowded seasonal candy market. The Sweets & Snacks Expo, the confectionery and snack industry's largest annual trade event, draws hundreds of product entries across its Most Innovative New Product programme; a Seasonal Category win functions as a key retail shelf-placement signal ahead of the Easter buying cycle. Brach's, which Ferrara markets as the category leader in seasonal candy, has historically leaned on limited-edition and format innovation to defend that position against private-label and rival branded challengers.
The product is slated for a nationwide retail debut in spring 2027 as part of the Easter seasonal set, giving Ferrara roughly two full selling seasons to build retail distribution and consumer awareness. The company has not detailed the marketing spend behind the launch, though seasonal confectionery introductions of this scale typically involve significant in-store display and digital promotion commitments in the February-to-April window. Analysts tracking the broader confectionery and snack sector have noted that texture-forward innovation — layering crunch with chew — has emerged as one of the more durable product trends in seasonal candy and impulse snacking over the past two years, a dynamic Ferrara appears to be exploiting directly with the Brach's reformulation.
Ferrara, privately held and backed by Ferrero Group, does not report standalone financials. The company's broader portfolio includes Trolli, Black Forest, and Nerds under licence, giving it broad exposure to the gummy and novelty candy segments that underpin much of the seasonal candy market's growth.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.