Type sweets Founder Pietro Negro | Founded 1920 Headquarters Hungary | |
Negro is a Hungarian candy which was invented by the Italian confectioner Pietro Negro living and working in Hungary in the 1920s. It is being produced by Győri Keksz Kft., a Hungarian confectionery manufacturer. In Serbia, this brand of candies has been produced by Pionir for over 80 years. ' slogan is "the chimney sweep of the throat". On its wrapper a chimney sweep is depicted while sweeping a chimney. It gets its originally black colour from active carbon and anise which is similar in taste to licorice, and taste from menthol added. Its full recipe is an industrial secret.
The name Negro is sometimes seen as racist. The name refers to its inventor, Pietro Negro, and the word "black" (as the most popular version of the candy is black), and is not connected to people of African descent. In fact the naming dates back before the times the hungarian version of the word (Néger) started to be used to express a negative attitude against people with black skin in the 1990s.