Are Welch’s Fruit Snacks Vegan? (No, Here’s Why)


Are Welch’s Fruit Snacks Vegan

You want to make sure your child has something fruity and delicious for a snack at school. Or maybe you’re hankering for something sweet in between meals. Either way, Welch’s Fruit Snacks may seem like great option for vegans… or are they?

Welch’s Fruit Snacks are not vegan. They contain gelatin, typically derived from beef or pork. Additionally, Welch’s Fruit Snacks contain refined sugar that may have been processed from bone char. The best vegan and healthier alternatives to Welch’s Fruit Snacks include SmartSweets Fruit Gummy Bears, Lily’s Gummy Bears Sweet Fruity Friends, and Better Bears Variety Pack.

Since this is a bit of a complicated subject, let’s take a deeper look at Welch’s Fruit Snacks and explore their ingredients more closely.

Non-Vegan Ingredients

How can a fruit snack like Welch’s ever not be vegan? After all, there aren’t any meat-based ingredients included, right?

While this is true, Welch’s fruit snacks aren’t vegan because they have a handful of problematic ingredients, including:

  • Gelatin: this is often made from animals such as pigs. Specifically, manufacturers get it by boiling skin, ligaments, tendons, and/or bones from animals. While there’s no confirmation that Welch’s does this as well, they haven’t outright said that they get their gelatin from non-animal sources, either. Not all candy uses gelatin – for instance, Fruit Gushers avoid gelatin in favor of agar-agar
  • Artificial colors: many of these are harvested from insects or are tested on animals before reaching the market
  • Sugar:  often filtered using a process called bone char. Bone charring requires the charred bones of cattle, so it’s naturally non-vegan. Again, Welch’s hasn’t said one way or the other whether they use bone charring to filter their sugar

Because of this, Welch’s is currently assumed to be vegan, but there’s no real guarantee one way or the other. Welch’s themselves, of course, claim that their fruit snacks are 100% vegan.

Note that this is very similar to other candies, many of which use similar ingredients. Fruit Roll Ups, for example, are technically vegan but they also contain problematic ingredients just like Welch’s Fruit Snacks.

Welch’s Fruit Snacks Nutrition Information

Welch’s fruit snacks come in a wide variety of flavors, but we can look at a few and understand the basics about their nutritional info since they share most major ingredients. Let’s take a look at some of Welch’s most popular fruit snack flavors to confirm whether they are vegan or not.

Welch’s Mixed Fruit Snacks

Welch’s Mixed Fruit Snacks are one of the brand’s most popular flavors since they include fruit snacks with a variety of unique tastes. Like all of the fruit snacks from Welch’s, these fruit snacks are made with real fruit and are packed with plenty of vitamins.

Its ingredients are:

  • Fruit purée (strawberry, raspberry, peach, orange, and grape)
  • Corn syrup
  • Sugar
  • Modified cornstarch
  • Gelatin
  • Concord grape juice from concentrate
  • Citric acid
  • Lactic acid
  • Natural and artificial flavors
  • Ascorbic acid
  • Alpha-tocopherol acetate
  • Vitamin A palmitate
  • Sodium citrate
  • Coconut oil
  • Carnauba wax
  • Annatto
  • Turmeric Red 40
  • Blue 1

Nutrition Facts (per 1 pouch):

  • 45 cal
  • 10 mg sodium
  • 10 g carbohydrates or 4% DV
  • 6 g sugar or 10% DV
  • 140 mcg vitamin A or 15% DV
  • 14 mg vitamin C or 15% DV
  • 3 mg vitamin E or 15% DV

As you can see, these fruit snacks include some of the problematic ingredients we broke down above, including sugar, artificial colors, and gelatin.

Welch’s Superfruit Snacks

Welch’s Superfruit-flavored snacks include even more direct fruit juice for added vitamin content and a more fruit-forward flavor. These are great for parents who want their kids’ fruit snacks to be as nutrient-packed as possible without being overly sugary. But as before, these fruit snacks include the potentially problematic ingredients we went over earlier.

Its ingredients are:

  • Fruit purée (including grape, pear, apricot, kiwi, pomegranate, blackberry, açai, blueberry, passionfruit, dragonfruit, goji, and star fruit)
  • Corn syrup
  • Sugar
  • Modified cornstarch
  • Gelatin
  • Citric acid
  • Lactic acid
  • Natural flavors
  • Ascorbic acid
  • Alpha-tocopherol acetate
  • Vitamin A palmitate
  • Sodium citrate
  • Coconut oil
  • Carnauba wax
  • Annatto
  • Turmeric
  • Fruit and vegetable juice

Nutrition Facts (per 1 pouch):

  • 70 cal
  • 20 mg sodium or 1% DV
  • 17 g carbohydrates or 6% DV
  • 10 g sugar or 16% DV
  • 1 g protein
  • 230 mcg vitamin A or 25% DV
  • 23 mg vitamin C or 25% DV
  • 8 mg vitamin E or 25% DV

Welch’s Reduced Sugar Berries N’ Cherries Snacks

Welch’s also offers a range of reduced sugar fruit snacks. Their Berries N Cherries flavor is particularly popular. This fruit snack is still a good choice for its vitamin and nutritional content, but it has even less sugar for parents who want to cut down on sugar intake for their kids. Once more, we’d caution parents to call these fruit snacks “truly” vegan due to their ingredient compositions.

Its ingredients are:

  • Fruit purée (including strawberry, peach, pear, raspberry, blackberry, cherry, and blueberry)
  • Corn syrup
  • Chicory root extract
  • Sugar
  • Modified cornstarch
  • Gelatin
  • Citric acid
  • Lactic acid
  • Ascorbic acid
  • Natural and artificial flavors
  • Alpha-tocopherol acetate
  • Vitamin A palmitate
  • Sodium citrate
  • Coconut oil
  • Carnauba wax
  • Annatto
  • Turmeric
  • Fruit and vegetable juice

Nutrition Facts (per 1 pouch):

  • 60 cal
  • 5 mg sodium
  • 17 g carbohydrates or 6% DV
  • 3 g fiber or 11% DV
  • 7 g sugar or 10% DV
  • 1 g protein
  • 230 mcg vitamin A or 25% DV
  • 23 mg vitamin C or 25% DV
  • 8 mg vitamin E or 25% DV

Are Mott’s Fruit Snacks Gluten-Free?

While these alternatives are useful Mott’s Fruit Snacks are Welch’s direct competitor. You might want to know whether they are vegan and or gluten-free as well.

Turns out, Mott’s Fruit Snacks are generally considered vegan for the same reason that Welch’s Fruit Snacks are as well. They also use some artificial colors, so the same restrictions or warnings apply to their fruit snacks.

Mott’s Fruit Snacks are also generally regarded as gluten-free since they lack wheat or wheat-based ingredients. Their ingredients include:

  • Corn syrup
  • Sugar
  • Modified cornstarch
  • Pear juice concentrate
  • Apple juice concentrate
  • Sweet potato juice concentrate
  • Citric acid
  • Vitamin C
  • Fruit pectin
  • Sodium citrate
  • Malic acid
  • Natural colors
  • Artificial colors
  • Sunflower oil
  • Natural flavors
  • Carnauba wax

Nutritional facts (per 1 bag):

  • 80 cal
  • 30 mg sodium or 1% DV
  • 19 g carbohydrates or 7% DV
  • 9 g sugar or 18% DV
  • 54 mg vitamin C or 60% DV

Healthy Vegan Alternatives to Welch’s Fruit Snacks

As you can see, there isn’t anything indicating that Welch’s Fruit Snacks are necessarily anti-vegan. But there are several potential problematic ingredients like sugar, artificial colors, and gelatin. Until Welch’s can prove that its fruit snacks are made without harming animals, we can’t truly call these fruit snacks vegan friendly.

On top of that, Welch’s fruit snacks are not the healthiest fruit snacks for kids you can find. There are, in fact, plenty of healthy vegan alternatives to Welch’s offerings. Let’s take a look at some of those alternatives now.

SmartSweets Fruit Gummy Bears

Smart Sweets Variety Pack 1.8 oz Bags (Box of 8) Low Sugar Gummy Candy with Stevia - SweetFish (2), Sour Blast Buddies (2), Fruity Gummy Bears (2), Sour Gummy Bears (2) SmartSweet’s Fruit Gummy Bears are top-tier for their high-quality flavor and for only having 4 g of sugar per 50 g of gummy bears in the bag. In other words, these are very low in sugar compared to most other gummy bears on the market. Plus, they have 34% fewer calories than other gummy bears and plenty of fiber to help your kids stay full and satisfied in between meals.

Its ingredients are:

  • Non-GMO isomalto-oligosaccharides
  • Allulose
  • Soluble tapioca fiber
  • Gelatin
  • Malic acid
  • Citric acid
  • Natural flavors
  • Fruit and vegetable juice
  • Coconut oil
  • Carnauba wax
  • Monk fruit extract

Nutrition Facts (per 1 bag):

  • 110 cal
  • 70 mg sodium or 3% DV
  • 36 g carbohydrates or 13% DV
  • 9 g fiber or 32% DV
  • 4 g sugar
  • 4 g protein

Lily’s Gummy Bears Sweet Fruity Friends

Lily’s Gummy Bears are another excellent alternative for parents who want something relatively healthy for their kids to snack on. These gummy bears have less than a single gram of sugar per serving, making them fantastic for health-minded parents or kids who may need to consume less sugar because of health reasons.

Its ingredients are:

  • Soluble corn fiber
  • Allulose
  • Pectin
  • Citric acid
  • Sodium citrate
  • Natural flavors
  • Palm oil (sustainably sourced)
  • Coconut oil
  • Natural color
  • Carnauba wax
  • Stevia extract

Nutrition Facts (per 51 g):

  • 70 cal
  • 105 mg sodium or 5% DV
  • 42 g carbohydrates or 15% DV
  • 25 g fiber or 88% DV
  • <1 g sugar

Better Bears Variety Pack

Better Bears offers a healthy spread of low-sugar gummy bears in a variety of flavors. Their variety pack is great for kids who like to enjoy something tasty or novel from time to time and for parents who want to make sure their children get something gluten-free, plant-based, and keto-friendly (as a plus, these gummy bears might also be a good choice for adults!).

Its ingredients are:

  • Isomalto-oligosaccharide
  • Modified potato starch
  • Pectin
  • Natural flavors
  • Citric acid
  • Sodium citrate
  • Malic acid
  • Coconut oil
  • Fruit and vegetable juice
  • Stevia leaf extract
  • Carnauba wax

Nutrition Facts (per 1 bag):

  • 50 cal
  • 39 g carbohydrates
  • 33 g fiber or 118% DV
  • 1 g sugar or 1% DV
  • 60 mg sodium or 3% DV

Final Thoughts

All in all, Welch’s Fruit Snacks are technically vegan, but we can’t be 100% sure that they are true to the vegan spirit until we know where each of their ingredients comes from. For now, we recommend checking out some of the healthy vegan alternatives described above to be extra safe.

Related Questions

What types of fruit snacks are vegan?

The most vegan friendly brands include Mott’s, Annie’s, and Betty Crocker.

Is Welch’s juice vegan?

Yes because the juice filtering process doesn’t use gelatin or other animal byproducts.

Do Welch’s fruit snacks use real fruit?

Yes, the fruit is ground into a pulp or purée and mixed with other ingredients.

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Choosing Nutrition Team

Here at Choosing Nutrition, our goal is to help people with making smarter food choices. Whether you're wondering about vegan, keto, paleo, or other diets, we'll help you determine which options fit your nutritional lifestyle. Our staff is composed of registered dieticians, nutritionists, and health-conscious individuals.

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