Haribo recalls sweets across Benelux after cannabis found

A recall of Haribo sweets triggered when packages were found to contain cannabis-laced cola chews has been extended to the whole Benelux region.

Several people in the eastern region of Twente, including children, became unwell after consuming the sweets last week. The presence of the drug was confirmed by the food safety authority NVWA after one family called the police.

Haribo has recalled the entire batch of sweets with the same product code as the three contaminated packs. The packs are 1kg bags of Happy Cola F!ZZ with a use-by date of January 2026.

The NVWA warned people not to eat the sweets, which could cause health issues such as drowsiness.

“We don’t know at this stage how the cannabis came to be in the sweets. Police are carrying out further investigations,” the regulator said on its website.

No contaminated bags have been reported so far outside Twente. Haribo said it was recalling the sweets, which have the product code L341-4002307906, as a precaution.

“We are taking this incident extremely seriously,” a spokeswoman for Haribo’s Dutch office told Dutch News on Friday.