Product type Candy coated licorice Introduced 1893 | Owner The Hershey Company Markets U.S. | |
 | ||
Country Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. Previous owners Quaker City Confectionary Company
Warner-Lambert
Beatrice Foods
Leaf, Inc. | ||
Good & Plenty is a brand of licorice candy. The candy is a narrow cylinder of sweet black licorice, coated in a hard candy shell to form a capsule shape. The pieces are colored bright pink and white and presented in a purple box or bag.
Contents
History
Good & Plenty was first produced by the Quaker City Confectionery Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1893 and is the oldest branded candy in the United States. Warner-Lambert purchased Quaker City in 1973 and sold it to Leaf Candy Company (owned by Beatrice Foods) in 1982. It is now produced by Hershey Foods, which purchased Leaf in 1996.
Beginning around 1950, a cartoon character named "Choo-Choo Charlie" appeared in Good & Plenty television commercials. A railroad engineer, Charlie would shake a box of the candy in a circular motion, imitating a train's pushrods and making a sound like a train. Advertising executive Russ Alben wrote the "Choo-Choo Charlie" jingle based on the popular song "The Ballad of Casey Jones".
Production
The pink candies are colored with a red dye called K-Carmine, produced from the crushed bodies of the female cochineal insect. Current packaging lists the red dye as "Artificial Color (K-Carmine and Red 40 Lake)".
Outside North America
London drops are a similar candy sold in Finland and Sweden.