Finland Black Candy Wholesale & Bulk

People who buy Finnish black licorice usually don’t come in for much else in the candy aisle. Some grew up in Scandinavian homes. Others got bored of American red rope a long time ago and went looking for the real thing, and a few are just specialty food shoppers who want an import that tastes like nothing made here. Nine SKUs on this page, four Finnish brands (Finnska and Fazer, Halva and Candy People), so you get some brand variety without leaving the category. All bulk, 1.25 to 2.2 lb a unit. If you’re putting together a Finland licorice section, we’d anchor it here. Same goes for padding out a black licorice program with actual Scandinavian imports.

Finnska gives you the most to play with. Start with the Finnska Soft Black Licorice Bites, small and chewy. The flavor is anise and root extract with a light salmiak salting on top, which isn’t the Dutch taste at all (if you’ve had both you’ll know right away). The Finnska Black Licorice Ripples take the same idea into a rippled shape. There’s more surface and a slightly different chew. Handy when you want two Finnska pieces side by side in the display. Then the Finnska Strawberry Licorice Bites bring strawberry into the licorice. Sweet and tart with the licorice still there underneath. That combo turns up all over Finnish candy, and it’s the one we’d hand to someone who likes licorice but wants some fruit in it. Last comes the Finnska Sugar-Free Black Soft Licorice, the same soft black licorice made without sugar, for shoppers who watch their sugar but aren’t giving up licorice.

Fazer has two pieces here, and they come at it from opposite directions. The Fazer Salty Licorice Kitten is that little cat-shaped soft licorice, salty and sweet together (you’ll also find it in the wider Fazer Finland line). Having it here says a lot about how much salty licorice matters to Finns. The Fazer Dumle Licorice in Milk Chocolate is the crossover piece, licorice toffee in a milk chocolate shell. For a shopper who’s never tried Finnish licorice it’s the gentlest way in on the whole page, so we’d keep it close to the bites.

Halva covers strawberry licorice twice. The Halva Strawberry Licorice Bites are cut pieces. The Halva Strawberry Licorice Rug is flat like a sheet, and in a self-serve bin it looks different from everything around it. Halva’s a well-known name in Finland, and Finnish shoppers abroad who grew up on its strawberry licorice tend to stick with it. Candy People sells across Scandinavia. Their Soft Finnish Licorice Bites are a touch softer than the Finnska ones, which is actually useful, because now the soft black licorice bin has two textures instead of one.

Import grocers are where this does best, especially the ones whose regulars are Finnish or Scandinavian or from elsewhere in Northern Europe. For a lot of those shoppers black licorice is just something they keep in the house, the way other people keep coffee around. Put several Finnska and Fazer formats together and you’ve got a section they’ll come back to on purpose. A European candy shop gets something out of it too. Next to the other Nordic imports, a proper black licorice spot is honestly one of the clearer signs that somebody picked the Scandinavian candy with care.

If Nordic licorice is new to your shop, we’d start with two. The Finnska Soft Black Licorice Bites are what Finnish black licorice actually tastes like. The Fazer Dumle Licorice in Milk Chocolate is for the curious shopper who wants to ease in. After that you can bring in the Finnska Sugar-Free or a Halva strawberry licorice, maybe the Candy People bites, all from the same place so there’s no new vendor to deal with. Gift baskets work well here too. A Finnish basket with two or three black licorice formats next to Fazer Geisha and Fazer Dumle Original and some Fazer Kittens tells the whole Finnish candy story. Diaspora buyers like that, and so does anyone buying a gift for someone who’s curious about food. Units are 1.25 to 2.2 lb. No minimum order, and approved accounts get wholesale account pricing on US orders. Store it somewhere cool and dry and sell older stock before newer. Warmth is what you have to watch with soft licorice, because pieces that sit warm for long go soft and glue themselves to each other.

Here’s how we’d think about a first Nordic licorice section. A single licorice SKU stuck in a corner just looks lost, honestly. Put three or four together under a little sign and suddenly it reads like a section somebody planned. Our pick would be the Finnska Soft Black Licorice Bites for the hard-core licorice crowd and the Fazer Dumle Licorice in Milk Chocolate as the easy crossover. Add one of the Halva strawberry-licorice formats for people who aren’t sold on licorice yet (the fruit helps). Grow it from there once you see what’s moving, which is a lot less risky than buying the full range on day one. The sugar-free Finnska is worth having early if your shoppers tend to avoid sugar, since it tells them the section has something for them too. Everything comes in bulk. There’s no minimum order and you pay by card at checkout. It ships within the US.

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