BEAR Snacks

BEAR started in London in 2007, founded by husband-and-wife team Hayley and Andrew Gait-Golding with a simple conviction: a fruit snack should be made from fruit and nothing else. At the time, most fruit snacks on the shelf leaned on juice concentrates, added sugars, and preservatives. BEAR went the other direction, picking fruit at its ripest, blending it, then gently drying it at a low temperature before cutting it into its signature rolls and bites. The slow, low-heat process concentrates the fruit's natural sweetness, so nothing needs to be added, no sugar, no concentrates, no preservatives.

The playfulness is baked in alongside the fruit. Every pack comes with a collectible card featuring facts and activities, a detail that helped make BEAR a lunchbox staple for a generation of kids in the UK before the brand crossed the Atlantic. The snacks count toward the day's fruit intake and deliver a good dose of fiber, which is part of why parents reach for them, but the chewy texture and intense fruit flavor are why kids actually eat them.

What began as a small London startup is now one of the best-known better-for-you snack brands in both the UK and the US.