Multitrance Bubbly Billy CBD Gummy Bears 300mg

Read the colourings first

The published ingredient list for these gummy bears includes colourings E102 and E110. Those are tartrazine and sunset yellow FCF, and they are two of the six colours known in the trade as the Southampton Six.

Under Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008, which the UK retained after leaving the EU, any food containing tartrazine (E102), quinoline yellow (E104), sunset yellow FCF (E110), carmoisine (E122), ponceau 4R (E124) or allura red (E129) must carry the statement: may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children. That wording is set by the regulation. It is not our phrasing, it is not a health claim, and it is not optional on the pack.

So it belongs here too. Of the two UK pages currently ranking for this product, one reprints the ingredient list in full including the two colours and simply does not carry the statement, and the other publishes no ingredients whatsoever. Neither is doing anything unlawful, since the requirement attaches to the packaging rather than to a web listing, but a shop that reproduces an ingredient declaration and drops the sentence that legally travels with it is showing you half the label.

There is a further wrinkle worth knowing. Two different colour declarations are in circulation for this product. The one used by UK retailers gives E102, E110 and E133. The one our own supplier publishes gives curcumin, tartrazine, patent blue v, indigotin and black carrot. Tartrazine is on both lists, so the point above holds either way, but the rest do not match and we have asked for the current pack artwork to settle it.

None of this means the sweets are unsafe. It means the label says something specific and the shops selling them are not passing it on.

Gelatine, and why that matters here

These are set with gelatine, which is an animal product. That makes them unsuitable for anyone eating vegetarian or vegan, and it is a genuinely easy thing to get caught out by, because a large part of the UK CBD gummy market is pectin based and vegan by default.

Exactly one page in the ranking set mentions gelatine at all, and it does so in the middle of a single unbroken ingredient string where nobody reads it. The other publishes no ingredients.

If a plant-set gummy is what you need, several of the ranges further down this page use pectin instead. We would rather point you at one of those than take an order you will want to send back.

The three flavours

Three in the range and all built on the same gelatine base at the same thirty milligrams a bear. The flavour is the only thing that changes.

Two of the three are unavailable at the moment. Sold-out options stay visible in the picker rather than being hidden, so you can see the full range and what is due back.

Thirty milligrams in a single bear

That is a high figure for one sweet, and it is worth putting next to something. The Food Standards Agency advises healthy adults to take no more than ten milligrams of CBD a day from food supplements. One of these bears carries three times that.

It is precautionary advice rather than a legal limit, and nothing on this page is dosage guidance. What it does mean is that these are not a graze-from-the-bag sweet in the way a ten milligram gummy is. Not one page selling them mentions the comparison.

The practical consequence is about self-control rather than safety. A hundred gram bag of gummy bears is a format designed to be eaten several at a time, and thirty milligrams a piece is a strength designed for one. Those two things are in tension, and you should know that before the bag is open rather than after.

Four brands, four 300mg gummy bears

This is the comparison no brand-owned site can publish, so it is the one worth doing properly. We stock several bags around this strength and they are not interchangeable.

The differences that actually matter are the setting agent, the strength per piece and the bag size. A three hundred milligram bag spread across ten large bears is a very different product from a three hundred milligram bag spread across forty small ones, even though the number on the front is identical.

What they are like

A firm, chewy bear rather than a soft one. Gelatine sets harder than pectin does, so these have more resistance and more chew, and they hold their shape in a warm room better than a plant-set gummy will.

The CBD is noticeable. At thirty milligrams in a small sweet there is a faint bitter, slightly grassy edge underneath the fruit, most obvious right at the end. Passion Fruit hides it best because the flavour is sharp enough to compete. Strawberry is where you notice it most, because a straightforwardly sweet flavour has nothing to hide behind.

The colour is bright. That is what E102 and E110 are for, and it is worth saying that the alternative, plant-derived colours give a duller sweet. Some people prefer that trade, some do not, and the point of putting the declaration up top is that you get to decide.

The legal position, and one contradiction on the shelf

The brand states these as containing no THC. Beyond that, the UK consumer test on controlled cannabinoids is one milligram per container, applied to the container itself rather than to a portion or expressed as a proportion. A percentage of a hundred gram bag is a large number in milligrams, which is precisely why the percentage is not the test.

One of the two UK pages ranking for this product manages to state that it is zero per cent THC and, in the same listing, that it sits under a percentage limit that it describes as the UK legal limit. Both cannot be the operative claim, and the second is not the test at all. The figure it refers to governs how much a licensed grower may have in a standing hemp crop.

There is a real CBD ingredient here rather than a flavouring, so the Novel Foods regime is the relevant one for ingestible CBD in Britain. We have not verified an authorisation for this line and claim none for it.

One of the two UK pages selling these states no age restriction at all. These are eighteen plus, as is everything we stock.

Who should not buy these

Anyone eating vegetarian or vegan. Gelatine is the setting agent and there is no way around that.

Anyone buying for a household where the colouring statement matters. E102 and E110 carry a specific required warning about children's activity and attention, and while this is an adult product in the first place, a bag of brightly coloured gummy bears in a kitchen is not always treated as one.

Anyone new to CBD. Thirty milligrams in a single sweet is the strongest per-piece figure in this comparison and a poor place to start. A ten milligram sweet gives you somewhere to go.

And anyone who wants a soft gummy. These are firm and chewy by design. If you prefer the softer texture, a pectin-set range is the one to look at.