Are Nerds Vegan?

If there’s one type of food that often sneaks in random ingredients that can scupper the product’s vegan credentials, it’s confectionary. As we outline in our article on Vegan Sweets, there is a range of ingredients that tend to render confectionary non-vegan. One of the most common non-vegan ingredients found in sweets is gelatine (or gelatin), which is made from collagen from bones or other parts of various animals.

In the case of Nerds, the culprit – at least for some flavours – is a food colouring made from insects: carmine, aka Red 40. Having said that, as we’ll see, gelatine also makes an appearance in some of the Nerds products, just to nail them firmly to the non-vegan mast.

Having said that, in recent times many of the Nerds flavours have been made without the inclusion of carmine. But that doesn’t mean all their products are 100% plant-based. In this article, we’ll explain what the deal is and whether vegans should simply avoid all Nerds products and opt for vegan-friendly alternatives.

What Are Nerds?

Nerds are little sugary sweets that come in boxes, usually with two different flavours. Made primarily from sugar, food colourings and a little carnauba wax (sounds good, right?!), Nerds are nutritionally appalling, even for sweets. First introduced way back in 1983 under the Willy Wonka Candy Company brand (that related to the Roald Dahl book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and the 1971 film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory). Nerds were first produced by the Sunmark Corporation before being sold to Nestle and then to the current owners, the Ferrara Candy Company (of Ferrero Rocher fame).

There are various Nerds products out there, including the most commonly recognised boxes of Nerds that contain two flavours, one on each side of the box with a partition between them to ensure they don’t mix. Other Nerds offerings include:

• Big Chewy Nerds – The name gives the game away here. These are bigger, chewier versions of the originals and come with a crunchy shell and a soft interior… but still a whole lot of sugar!
• Nerds Rope – These are the standard Nerds sweets in different packaging – a long, thin packet that contains a mixture of flavours.
• Gummy Clusters – These Gummy Clusters seem to be the standard Nerds sweets clumped together and we have to wonder whether they came about when someone put the wrong setting on the machine in the factory. Either way, they are crunchy on the outside, ‘gummy’ in the middle and full to the brim with sugar. Alas, the ‘gummy’ part relies on gelatine, so these are certainly not vegan.

Do People Really Make Food Colouring Out of Insects?

One thing we’ve learned while doing the research for this website is that people come up with loads of ways to use and exploit animals. Whether that is forcing monkeys to pick coconuts to using fish innards to filter beer or indeed using insects to make food colouring.

The answer here is yes, insects are indeed used to make the food colouring E120, also known as carmine, natural red 4, the rather nice-sounding crimson lake, or the more accurate cochineal extract (as it is made from extracts of the cochineal insect).

Are Insects Even Animals?

As we’ve mentioned many times on this site, the definition of veganism that is most widely accepted is that put forth by The Vegan Society, which states that:

Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.

The definition, and indeed anyone who lives by the moral codes of veganism, does not count only some animals (such as the cute fluffy ones, or the mammals or whatever). All animals are considered worthy of protection under the vegan umbrella, whether they are dogs, cats, cows, sheep, mussels and clams or, yes, even insects.

Although some people mistakenly assume that only mammals, birds and fish are animals, when it comes to the biological kingdom Animalia, the church is broad indeed. Indeed insects reside in the same kingdom as frog, fish, wombats, sheep, primates and every other animal on the planet – including humans. If you don’t eat animals, you shouldn’t eat insects, even if they produce pretty colours for your sugar-rich sweets.

Typical Ingredients of Nerds

Apart from the insect-derived food colouring that is present in almost all varieties of Nerds, there are plenty of other ingredients thrown in there that you might want to avoid. They look and sound remarkably unhealthy, and if we glance at the ingredients, we’re not exactly reassured.

Strawberry & Grape Flavour Nerds – Dextrose, Sugar, Malic Acid, Glucose Syrup, Flavourings, Glazing Agent Carnauba Wax, Colours (Titanium Dioxide, Cochineal, Carminic acid, Carmine*, Brilliant blue FCF, Indigo carmine, Allura Red AC*). May Contain Egg. *May have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children.

As well as being made up primarily of sugar, Nerds also tend to include ingredients that might screw with your kids’ activity and attention. Just what every parent needs, right? In terms of veganism, though, it is the carmine, Carminic acid and Cochineal that are the main problems – they are all variants of the same thing that has been produced from the cochineal insect (as mentioned earlier in the article).

The fact that the sweets also ‘may contain egg’ will be of less concern to many vegans as this just means the sweets have been produced in a factory that also handles eggs or egg-derived products. Anyone who happens to be allergic to eggs should of course steer clear of Nerds for this reason though, whether vegan or not.

Are Any Nerds Products Vegan?

Although some Nerds don’t seem to contain any specifically non-vegan ingredients, there are maybe some vegans who would avoid them simply on the basis of the ‘may contain eggs’ warning. The flavours that no longer contain carmine have apparently replaced it with the E129 food colouring; this is synthetic and ‘May have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children’ and there is an argument for vegans and non-vegans alike to avoid these sugar-rich sweets anyway.

Typical Nutritional Values of Nerds

Just for the record, let’s take a quick look at the nutritional (or otherwise!) values of Nerds. Just to put the sugary nature of these multi-coloured, child-temperament-altering sweets, we’ve added the nutritional details of boke Coke and Pepsi. These drinks are obviously an entirely different type of product but the comparison is startling.

*Based on the Lemonade Wild Cherry/Seriously Strawberry Double Dipped Nerds as listed at Selfridges in February 2023

Some Nerds May Be Vegan, But Probably Best to Avoid from a Health Perspective

As we have seen, almost all varieties of Nerds that are readily available in the UK contain ludicrously high amounts of sugar. There are some flavours of the sweets that – if you discount the fact they may contain eggs – could technically be described as vegan. But as we show on our Vegan Sweets page, there are so many tasty vegan-friendly alternatives that probably won’t have ‘an adverse effect on activity and attention’ in your kids, we’d recommend giving these the swerve anyway.