Are Welch’s Fruit Snacks Vegan

Welch’s fruit snacks are a product produced by a company called Welch’s, a company known for its grape juices, jams, and jellies. What we are going to see in this article is that: is vegans can consume Welch’s fruit snacks, or it’s vegan friendly? That’s what we are going to cover in this article.
Let’s see first what Welch’s stands for.

What is Welch’s:

Welch’s is an American company, her main office located in Concord, Massachusetts. The National Grape Cooperative Organization, a co-op of grape cultivators, possessed it in 1956. The Firm is recognized specifically for its jams, grape juices, and white Niagara grape juice and also its jellies made from dark Concord grapes.

The business likewise creates and markets various other groups of products, consisting of frozen and shelf stable concentrates, refrigerated juices, organic grape juice, and dried fruit. In 1974, Welch’s has additionally accredited its brand name for another group of grape flavored sodas.

Currently, Global Beverage Corporation licensed Other Welch’s products like grape and strawberry soda flavors. The other popular products that use Welch’s name is the one that we are going to talk about in this article made by The Promotion In Motion Companies, Inc. ^[1]

Welch’s Fruit Snacks Nutrition Facts:

Serving Size: 40g

Amount Per Serving

• Calories: 130
  • Calories from fat: 0g
• Total fat: 0g
  • Saturated fat: 0g
  • Trans fat: 0g
• Cholesterol: 0mg
• Sodium: 15mg
• Total carbohydrates: 31g
  • Dietary fiber: 0g
  • Sugars: 18g
• Protein: 1g
• Vitamin A: 25%
• Vitamin C: 100%
• Calcium: 0%

Welch’s Fruit Snacks Ingredients:

When you read the name of the product, you will think that Welch’s fruit snacks are made from fruits, but when you look at the product ingredients, you will be disappointed. Now, let’s see the components of Welch’s fruit snacks below:

• Corn Syrup
• Fruit puree (Strawberry, Orange, Peach, Grape, and Raspberry)
• Sugar
• Concord Grape Juice from Concentrate
• Gelatin
• Modified Corn Starch
• Lactic Acid
• Natural and Artificial Flavors
• Citric Acid
• Alpha Tocopherol Acetate (Vitamin E)
• Vitamin A Palmitate
• Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C)
• Coconut Oil
• Carnauba Wax
• Sodium Citrate
• Turmeric (Color), Annatto (Color), Red 40, and Blue 1).

As you can see, we have four ingredients (red ones) that are suspicious and may not be vegan friendly. Let’s see what these four ingredients contain.

What is sugar:

Sugar (sucrose) is glucose and fructose composed together, and we can extract it from sugar cane or sugar beet.

Sugar cane: is expanded in particular areas on the world, such as tropical and sub-tropical parts, including Brazil, South Africa, India, Mauritius, and the West Indies. It is a big grass, expanding as high as five meters, and the sugar saved in its long stalk, the plant uses it as a source of reserve food for her.

Sugar beet: is a root crop, and you can find it in more temperate parts of the world. This plant stores sugar in its root, not in its stalk. It is grown in many parts of the world like Canada, the United States, Europe, China, and many countries.

As you can see, we get sugar from plants, but we have chosen sugar; it’s because of the refining process that each sugar company does. So, to decide whether sugar is natural or not, it depends on the company and its refining process.

Gelatin:

Gelatin is a food product you can produce simply by cooking collagen. So, it is completely protein made, and its distinctive amino acid profile gives it lots of health benefits.

Collagen is an extremely plentiful protein located in animals and humans. It is located almost everywhere in the body yet is most plentiful in the bones, skin, tendons, and ligaments. Moreover, collagen can be obtained from these parts by boiling them in water. People often implement this process when they’re making soup stock to add flavor and nutrients.

So this is one and a clear sign that Welch’s fruit snacks are not vegan friendly.

Natural and Artificial Flavors:

Natural Flavors: we can extract natural flavors from plant or animal sources such as spices, fruit, edible yeast, herbs, bark, buds, vegetables, root leaves or plant material, dairy products including fermented products, meat, poultry or seafood, and eggs. You can get These flavors by roasting or heating the animal or plant material.

So, as you can see, natural flavors can be made from plants or animals; this is why most vegans avoid it.

Artificial Flavors: So we have seen that the original source of natural flavor could be a plant or animal. For artificial flavor, the original source of it is a human-made chemical. However, all flavors contain chemicals, whether they are natural or synthetic. Every substance in the world is composed of chemicals, including water.

So, the primary difference between artificial and natural flavors is the source of the chemical combination. Artificial and natural flavor combinations have an identical molecular structure, but artificial flavors, rather than isolated from food ingredients they are created in a lab.

Artificial Colors:

We can find artificial colors anywhere in our food, candy, clothes, even in our toothpaste. So, what does food dyes made of? Artificial colors are chemical substances that manufacturers developed to enhance the look of foods by giving it synthetic color. These days, producers made food dyes from petroleum.

So, there is a bit of controversy about the safety of these artificial colors. Some food dyes are considered safe in some countries but banned from human consumption in another, making it extremely confusing to determine whether it’s safe for consumption or not.

Bottom Line:

Welch’s fruit snacks contain gelatin in their ingredients, which make it not vegan friendly.

Welch’s History:

Thomas Bramwell Welch and his son Charles Welch founded The company in Vineland, New Jersey, in 1869. After that, they decided to sell it to the National Grape Cooperative Organization, which includes 1,300 grape growers situated in New York City, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Washington, and Ontario, Canada, in 1956.

Back in the 1960s, Welch’s was the main sponsor of the ABC prime time animated comedy series The Flintstones. Welch’s TV commercials prominently featured its characters on that show, and on jars of Welch’s grape jelly, you can use the product as a glass after you fully utilized it. Additionally, The Archies cartoon characters were on the jars in the early 1970s. ^[2]