Wishing Allen’s lollies were Gluten Free? Read this.

Posted: September 17, 2024 Updated: September 17, 2024

Lollies are something that we don’t eat all the time but can have such a strong emotional and nostalgic pull. So when you realise Allen’s lollies are not gluten free, what do you do?

You get searching!

I’m always posting about gluten free finds at the supermarket on my Facebook page. And I’ve got a whole lot of guides on my website to help you find gluten free lollies (like this one for Coles).

Today I’m here to tell you I’ve got Allen’s covered, with almost all of the famous Party Mix, as a gluten free set.

This is a sponsored post by The GF Lolly Co. As you no doubt know, I’m candid in my posts so I’m not going to tell you something is great if it’s not. If you like, you can read more about how Kati Keksi is funded, and how you can support my work.

About The GF Lolly Co.

A one-woman business, The GF Lolly Co is an online store dealing exclusively in gluten free lollies. Most excitingly, they have a ginormous range of pick and mix lollies (over 200 options!).

But The GF Lolly Co actually didn’t start out that way. In it’s history it was also called Lolly Lane and even had a bricks and mortar store in Brisbane. However, like many businesses, it had to adapt to survive and it was the gluten free community that encouraged owner Nadine to become exclusively gluten free.

Since then it’s gone from strength to strength keeping coeliacs and GF folk all sugared up.

So of course when Nadine reached out and asked if I wanted to sample and share some of the range it was a no brainer!

Where do you begin when there’s 200 choices?

I could have accepted an offer of one of everything and ended up with 2 – 3kg of lollies in my pantry belly.

However that would be incredibly difficult to review. Not to mention, I like to go in-depth in my reviews. I’m kind of like an investigative journalist, but for coeliacs. 😁

So this was my rationale, what can we get that specifically Aussie coeliacs would miss? To me, that’s Allen’s Party Mix.

The second bit of reasoning comes from Facebook comments I often see. A lot of lollies (particularly what is gluten free) are made in China.

Look, lots of things are made in China, including food. It’s up to you what you want to buy, what you need to buy and of course what you can afford to buy.

But, just to make this article a little bit more special, all of these Allen’s dupes are made right here in Australia*.

*Ok, one is made in New Zealand. It’s the bananas. Sorry.

The selection

It was a gruelling process. Or rather, I just completely overthought it and agonised over what you guys would want to know about. So, here’s what I picked and what I’ll be telling you about.

• Pineapples
• Milk Bottles
• Strawberries & Cream
• Raspberries
• Raspberry Frogs
• Snakes
• Bananas (NZ)

Oh and bonus! I got a small packet of a Clinkers dupe. They are amusingly called Clangers, I’ll share a review of those soon.

The Taste

Lucky for me Allen’s Party Mix was on sale at Woolies this week so I picked up a bag for our taste comparison. Unluckily for me, there were no Snakes Alive in the packet – rip off!

For this review I got my mate who always eats gluten and occasionally eats lollies. They will do all the comparisons in the review.

We lined up the lollies on a chopping board and set to work. My husband dropped by too and sampled more than a few.

It’s hard to figure out the best way to write this up, so I’ll give a line or two about each one and put a summary at the end.

For me the banana tasted just like I remember. Reviewer two remarked that the gluten free banana had a better flavour and softer texture, describing the Allen’s as chalky. Winner: GF Lolly.

The pineapple and milk bottle had a good flavour and good texture, chewy but not sticky. Winner: GF Lolly (milk bottles were equal, Allen’s pineapple didn’t participate).

Red frog and strawberries and cream both had good flavours comparable to the Allen’s. However the texture in these two was very gummy, and stuck to our teeth. Winner: Flavour wise, GF was the same if not better in both cases. Texture though, it was Allen’s.

The raspberry lolly was controversial. I cut one in half and shared with reviewer two and she had funny look on her face, it tasted good and then suddenly bitter to her. I had the other half but didn’t have that issue, my husband had another one and it was fine. So I think perhaps an ingredient and her palate didn’t work? No winner to compare in this one – I thought raspberries were in the party mix but I guess not!

Lastly the Snakes, these were great! The consistency was spot on and not too sticky, we tried a green one (lime) and it was nice. No snakes in the Allen’s bag but we could remember well enough. Winner: GF Lolly.

The verdict

It’s always hard to compare an alternative version of a product with the original, whether that’s gluten free, vegan or something else. It’s going to be difficult, if not impossible, to get an exact match.

However, I think these lollies stand up really well. The main difference is the consistency of a few (that stickiness) and I’d put that down to the choice of ingredients rather than it being GF. After all, most had a great texture.

I would definitely recommend these to anyone looking for a gluten free alternative to Allen’s lollies. Not to mention other lollies! Like I said earlier in the article, there are 200+ gluten free lollies to choose from.

Where to buy gluten free lollies just like Allen’s

These lollies are all available through The GF Lolly Co. You can order as little or as much as you like in mini bags and there’s an option to build your own pick and minx in 250g, 500g or even 1kg bags.

There’s a different range of lollies between Standard and International so be sure to take a look at both. You can also filter by products that are either vegan or halal.

The price scales with size, the more you buy, the cheaper it gets. So you may have to buy a kilo. 😅

PRODUCT DETAILS

All my reviews have this product details section. I like having a standard piece here for readers to quickly assess. However, it is trickier when it comes to pick and mix lollies.

Gluten free: Either GF by ingredient or tested GF (varies by product)
Vegetarian / vegan: No, most but not all of the range contains gelatine.
Allergens: Varies. May contain: Varies, the website states that products are only GF and CC may occur with other allergens during packaging.
Serving size: At your discretion.

Still want more sugar content? Check out everything that’s on my website about lollies.