Unique Flavors at Very High Prices: A Review of Sugarfina

Sugarfina is known for its high-quality candy and even higher prices. A brand any sweets enthusiast should recognize, Sugarfina has been around online and in storefronts for more than ten years, selling some of the finest candy around–provided you have the cash to afford their products.

Outrageous prices (up to 50¢ per gummy!) raise the obvious question: are Sugarfina candies really worth the cost? The Barefoot Times decided to tackle this question in the fairest way possible: a taste test.

This taste test compared Sugarfina’s Baby Butterflies with Haribo Gold-Bears. Each individual participating in this experiment was given one flavor of the Baby Butterflies and one of the Gold-Bears. The Baby Butterflies flavors were either lemon, strawberry, blueberry, or apricot, and the Gold-Bears flavors were either raspberry, orange, pineapple, strawberry, or lemon. The basic criteria for the review were taste, texture, and cost-effectiveness, and opinions were recorded upon tasting. 

For reference, the cost of one Butterfly was 28¢, whereas the Haribo cost 5¢ a gummy bear. That means that a Butterfly should hypothetically be five to six times better than the average Haribo gummy.

For Owen Hawxhurst ’27, this was indeed the case. “The Butterflies are, like, a ten, and the regular gummy bears are a two. The gummy bears are too tough, but this one had the right texture and also a lot of flavor,” said Hawxhurst. “I’m not sure each butterfly is worth 28¢, however.” 

The writers of The Barefoot Times had different opinions. While they conceded Sugarfina’s Baby Butterflies had better texture, they found the regular Haribo gummies had better flavor. Jenna Nouri ’27, in particular,  claimed the Baby Butterflies had “a weird, artificial, sweet aftertaste.” When finding out that the butterflies were 28¢ each, she was aghast. 

As for my personal opinion, I found the Butterflies had far superior texture, taste, and aftertaste compared to the Haribo gummies. Haribo Gold-Bears simply had, in my opinion, too tough of a texture and a lackluster flavor. However, the staggering price of these gummies makes me believe that as good as they are, the Butterflies are not worth the price they are sold at.

To be fair, only one of the numerous flavors of candies from Sugarfina was reviewed. To create a full, comprehensive review of Sugarfina, I would need to buy several more flavors and conduct a similar taste test with them. My finances can’t support this kind of shopping endeavor, however. While this review is far from conclusive, the broad consensus was that Sugarfina is not worth the exorbitant price. 

This poses another interesting question, however: is anything worth the money spent on it, and what are the criteria for deciding?