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Canadians are increasingly popping chewy fruit gummies - sometimes even over chocolates - as they look for less guilt-laden sweet indulgences.

Faced with sluggish candy sales, confectionery makers are seeking to put a fresh face on the category. They're aiming to satisfy the consumer's sweet tooth while also convincing snackers that chewy candies aren't such a bad treat after all.

For chewy-candy producers, the blending of seemingly healthier ingredients with a chewy texture is becoming a winning recipe, marketing experts say.

Aging consumers are looking for a more nutritionally acceptable treat, said Marion Chan, food and beverage director at market researcher NPD Group Canada.

"Consumers are trying to look for that guilt-free indulgence, or less guilty indulgence," Ms. Chan said. "It's a fruit flavour and there's real fruit juice in it - whatever the claim might be - it allows the consumer to feel better."

Recent NPD research found that fewer chewy candy eaters are snacking on chocolate. In 2006, less than 21 per cent chose chocolate, down from 24 per cent in 2001.

As consumers reduce their chocolate consumption, they will need a replacement, Ms. Chan said. "They're not going to just go cold turkey. Chewy candy probably fits the bill."

Last year, confectionery giant Cadbury Adams Canada started to look at bolstering its sales of fruit chewies. The company had an array of chewy and hard candies, but that business wasn't nearly as strong as the company's chocolate line.

It dropped millions of dollars on a new marketing blitz, added new candy lines to its mainstay Fuzzy Peach and Sour Cherry Blasters and consolidated chewy candies under its Maynards brand.

Since the beginning of the year, sales have soared 25 per cent, five times their previous annual growth rate, said David Sculthorpe, president of Cadbury Adams Canada.

Pitching fruit juice and "real milk" chewy candy "certainly is a benefit and consumers really like it," he said. Last month, the company sold its hard-candy business altogether.

Cadbury has broadened its chewy offerings beyond fruit, with new tastes including the milkshake-flavoured Maynards Milkies, made with real milk. The company's research found that 70 per cent of candy is consumed by people 14 and older, and those people associate chewy candy with their childhood.

"It just makes people feel better," Mr. Sculthorpe said.

Part of that halo effect is feeling that they're doing the right thing, health-wise.

To help with portion control, Cadbury has introduced chewy candy pouches in a compact 12.5-gram size, marketing the product as having only 45 calories a pack. It shed other, less popular packaging, trimming costs by offering fewer items over all.

Dare Foods Ltd. in Kitchener, Ont., is bolstering its RealFruit Gummies in a bid to satisfy consumers' craving for a guilt-free dose of sweets,said Heather McTavish, vice-president of marketing at Dare. The pitch includes such buzz words as fat free, no trans fats, no artificial colours or flavours and peanut free.

"We don't kid ourselves into thinking this is a healthy product," she added. "It is still more of an indulgence and more of a treat. We just want to offer a better-for-you product and better-for-you ingredients."

Consumers are switching to chewy candies from hard candies, according to Dare's research. To respond to the trends, Dare is adding more exotic fruit flavours and even other fillings - possibly chocolate in the future - to its gummies.