Visionary found sweet success with a little bear

Hans Riegel
1923-2013

Hans Riegel, who made the rainbow-coloured, fruit-flavoured, teddy-bear-shaped gelatin sweets known as gummi bears a global favourite, has died in Bonn, Germany. He was 90.

The cause of his death on Tuesday was heart failure, Haribo, the company he led for nearly seven decades, said.

Riegel transformed his family-owned company from a local candy maker with 30 workers into an internationally recognised brand with 6,000 employees around the world and annual sales of US$2 billion.

Riegel's father, also named Hans Riegel, founded Haribo in 1920. The elder Riegel concocted the first bear-shaped sweets, initially out of licorice.

After their father was killed in 1945, Riegel and his younger brother, Paul, set about rebuilding the business. Paul was responsible for production, while Hans oversaw sales and marketing. The brothers introduced the sweets they called "gold bears", known to most of the world as gummi bears, in the 1960s.