Walgreens has a cult ‘peelable’ candy, courtesy of a TikTok craze

It’s tiny, squishy, chewy. It’s shaped like a cute baby mango and GenZers have gone crazy over it. Walgreens can’t keep it in stock.

For the beleaguered drugstore chain, the odd “Gummy Mango” candy is a much-needed win. It arrived last fall in about 2,500 of its 8,700 US stores, and quickly sold out because, of course, TikTok. Online, Walgreens imposed a limit of one bag per customer on the little inventory that remained.

The unexpectedly viral product comes at a time that Walgreens has a lot on its plate that isn’t fun — debt piling up, employee unrest, competitors grabbing market share, store closures, its shoppers spending less on things they don’t need. It’s also juggling with having to keep everyday items like shampoos and shaving cream locked up over theft concerns, much to the annoyance of customers. Walgreens sorely needed some — any — good news.

Fortunately, the mango-flavored treat plays into the company’s long-term strategy of beefing up its front-of-store departments, said Morningstar analyst Keonhee Kim.

The product itself is a $1.99 bag of candy belonging to an on-trend genre of confectionery called gummy candies. This candy from Walgreens’ lower-priced Nice! house brand of snacks and drinks is different because it’s actually peelable.

In early January, a video explaining its uniqueness by TikToker @Trinhdoesthings got a whopping 8.9 million views.

In the video, she picks up a packet of the candy at a Walgreens store “after seeing it all over social media.” She tears it open at her kitchen table and then peels off the outer skin of the mango-shaped gummy and pops the shiny smooth inner pulp into her mouth, proclaiming, “This is so fun.” She then proceeds to eat the peel, too, while complimenting its chewy texture.

Other TikTok videos compared the treat to the peelable gummy candies in peach and grape flavors from Japanese or Korean brands available on Amazon, or showed ways to punch up the flavor by adding spice to the mango version.

Walgreens said it didn’t work with any paid influencer to hype up its mango gummies but that it took off organically. It also declined to disclose how many packets it has sold to date or total sales thus far.

Catching the wave

“The interactivity of it is really cool and it’s what makes the peelable candy really fun,” said Marty Esarte, vice president of Walgreens’ owned brands, in an interview with CNN. “It also creates a discussion point: Is the outer layer better than the inner gummy or are they better together or separate?”

Esarte admits that he didn’t expect the squishy treat to become a viral hit. “Literally in about four to five days after we launched it, we sold through nearly all of the product,” he said. “If we had expected that to happen, we probably would have had more.”

The idea for the candy first surfaced in 2023 during a discussion between Esarte’s team and a Walgreens supplier.

“One of our suppliers who we’ve worked with for more than 20 years identified this peelable candy trend last year that had emerged in Asia and brought it to us as an opportunity,” Esarte said.

The timing meshed perfectly with the latest candy consumption trends. The non-chocolate segment overall, which includes gummy candies, has been on a tear primarily because of Gen Z and millennial consumers, according to the National Confectioners Association.

Sweet nostalgia

Younger consumers, especially Gen Z are enamored with anything retro and vintage and this trend translates into foods as well. According to industry publication The Food Institute, Millennial and Gen Z shoppers favor fruit-flavored gummies that they’ve grown up on.

In the United States, the segment saw a 12.1% increase in dollar sales in 2023 versus a year ago to reach $19.2 billion in total sales. It also accounts for more than 30% of all confectionary sales in the country.

As Esarte and his team rushed to restock the mango gummies last last year, a bigger challenge emerged. Their need coincided with the timing of the Chinese New Year when all factory production in China grinds to a halt for a few weeks. The situation wasn’t ideal.

“Whatever product was still available overseas we airfreighted it to get it into stores quickly,” Esarte said.

After weeks of scrambling and rushing, Walgreens is better prepared to make a bigger splash with the mango gummies. “We’ve purchased a much larger amount of the candy and it will go into 8,000 stores by May.”

A new flavor, and a new CEO

But Esarte tipped CNN to the next flavor coming. “We’re launching a peelable banana gummy next,” he said. “Banana is a common favorite flavor across the US and the world and we think it’s another great item to add to the peelable gummy mix.”

The banana gummy (priced at $1.99 a bag) will launch in 5,000 Walgreens stores in May. The retailer already sells pineapple and orange gummies, but those aren’t as fun because you can’t peel them.

Morningstar analyst Kim, who covers the healthcare sector, said the candy is a nice win for Walgreens at a time when its problems have been mounting over the last 12 months and its stock is down 50% over that period.

“There was a big leadership change with its CEO leaving and new CEO Tim Wentworth coming in. As Tim takes charge of the company he’s thinking about where future growth for Walgreens will come from and where are some areas where they could cut costs,” said Kim.

One area is the frontend of the drugstore, typically where candy, snacks and other private label merchandise are sold.

“That space is a really important piece of the business,” Kim said. “That area is definitely a more profitable one than the backend oF the prescription dispensing business. Focusing on that piece with newer offerings will be key for Walgreens.”

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com